Astronomy

HOW TO SEE THIS MONTH’S LUNAR ECLIPSE p.25 NOVEMBER 2022 STARTS HERE! p.36 NEW RESEARCH ON BLACK HOLES, DARK MATTER, EXOPLANETS … AND MORE! PLUS www.Astronomy.com Vol. 50 • Issue 11 OBSERVE THE LEONID METEORS p. 16 BONUS 15 THINGS TO TEACH YOUR KIDS ABOUT SPACE p. 20 ONLINE BOB BERMAN ON ASTRONOMY AND EGO p. 12 CONTENT CODE p. 3

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Online Content Code: ASY2211 NOVEMBER 2022 Enter this code at www.astronomy.com/code VOL. 50, NO. 11 to gain access to web-exclusive content. ON THE COVER Among the first images released from the Webb Space Telescope is this stunning portrait of the galaxy group Stephan’s Quintet. NASA, ESA, CSA, AND STSCI FEATURES 28 20 COLUMNS 16 Sky This Month Strange Universe 12 The Leonids promise Giants shine at sunset. BOB BERMAN to dazzle this year MARTIN RATCLIFFE Observing Basics 14 This meteor shower should AND ALISTER LING be great. Here’s how GLENN CHAPLE to make the most of it. 30 Binocular Universe 15 STEPHEN JAMES O’MEARA Star Dome and Paths of the Planets PHIL HARRINGTON 20 RICHARD TALCOTT; Secret Sky 52 What kids should know ILLUSTRATIONS BY ROEN KELLY about spaceflight STEPHEN JAMES O’MEARA 36 COVER STORY From Sputnik to spacesuits, 7 here’s what every child should 25 rising stars learn about our new space age. in astronomy QUANTUM GRAVITY MICHAEL E. BAKICH Astronomy highlights 25 Everything you need to researchers who, early in know about the universe 25 their careers, have already this month: the LMC in distinguished themselves living color, a super speedy Totality touches and made an impact. nova, persistent star the Moon formation in the Tarantula 54 Nebula, and more. It’s worth getting up early Nov. 8 to see the Moon Ask Astro IN EVERY ISSUE slide into Earth’s shadow. Freezing time. From the Editor 4 MICHAEL E. BAKICH Astro Letters 6 Advertiser Index 53 ONLINE My Science Trips and Sky This Ask Astro Reader Gallery 56 FAVORITES Shop Tours Week Archives Breakthrough 58 Answers to all Go to www.Astronomy.com Perfect gifts for Travel the world A daily digest your cosmic Astronomy (ISSN 0091-6358, USPS 531-350) for info on the biggest news and your favorite with the staff of of celestial questions. is published monthly by Kalmbach Media science geeks. events. Co., 21027 Crossroads Circle, P. O. Box 1612, observing events, stunning photos, Astronomy. Waukesha, WI 53187–1612. Periodicals postage paid at Waukesha, WI, and additional offices. informative videos, and more. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Astronomy, PO Box 8520, Big Sandy, TX 75755. Canada Publication Mail Agreement #40010760. W W W.ASTRONOMY.COM 3

FROM THE EDITOR A new generation Editor David J. Eicher of astronomers Assistant Design Director Kelly Katlaps Our special section Many of us enthusiasts are familiar EDITORIAL this month brings you with great names in professional Senior Editor Mark Zastrow 25 outstanding young astronomy, names that have been Production Editor Elisa R. Neckar astronomers who around for a long time. But there’s a new genera- Senior Associate Editor Alison Klesman inspire us all. tion of astronomers in town, and this issue Associate Editor Jake Parks provides a special section introducing many Associate Editor Caitlyn Buongiorno ASTRONOMY: KELLY KATLAPS of them. Editorial Assistant Samantha Hill Our 25 young astronomers are making waves in a wide range of areas of astronomy, cosmol- ART ogy, and planetary science. Our editorial team, Illustrator Roen Kelly guided in this special project by Senior Editor Production Specialist Jodi Jeranek Mark Zastrow, has assembled quite a tour. Beginning on page 36, we introduce you to CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Canadian astronomer Cherry Ng, who is on Michael E. Bakich, Bob Berman, Adam Block, the leading edge of unraveling the mysteries of Glenn F. Chaple Jr., Martin George, Tony Hallas, fast radio bursts. We visit Katie Bouman and Phil Harrington, Jeff Hester, Alister Ling, explore her role in creating the first image of a Stephen James O’Meara, Martin Ratcliffe, Raymond Shubinski, black hole ever made, the supermassive center Richard Talcott of giant galaxy M87. We get to know an Astronomy contributor, Yvette Cendes, who is normally busy exploring radio signals emit- EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD ted by stars that are being devoured by black holes. You’ll also meet Buzz Aldrin, Marcia Bartusiak, Jim Bell, Timothy Ferris, Wen-Fai Fong, who is researching the rare explosions known as Alex Filippenko, Adam Frank, John S. Gallagher lll, gamma-ray bursts. Daniel W. E. Green, William K. Hartmann, Paul Hodge, Planetary science also receives scrutiny. Our profiles introduce Edward Kolb, Stephen P. Maran, Brian May, S. Alan Stern, you to Cristina Thomas, an asteroid researcher involved with the James Trefil DART mission, which aims to redirect threatening near-Earth objects. We learn of the activities of Alexander James, who analyzes Kalmbach Media solar storms and their effects on Earth. And there are many more, including Ciara McGrath, a CubeSat Chief Executive Officer Dan Hickey innovator, and Indara Suarez, who hunts for potential new particles Chief Financial Officer Christine Metcalf that could help explain how the cosmos works. Senior Vice President, Consumer Marketing Nicole McGuire Reading through the experiences of these celestial pioneers, Vice President, Content Stephen C. George you’ll see how inventive, diverse, and thoughtful these young folks Vice President, Operations Brian J. Schmidt are. We have much to learn about the universe in future times, and Vice President, Human Resources Sarah A. Horner I think you’ll see that the next generation of discovery is in very Circulation Director Liz Runyon capable hands. Director of Digital Strategy Angela Cotey Director of Design & Production Michael Soliday Yours truly, Retention Manager Kathy Steele Single Copy Specialist Kim Redmond Follow the David J. Eicher Editor ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT Dave’s Universe blog: Advertising Representative Kristi Rummel www.Astronomy. FOLLOW ASTRONOMY Phone (608) 435-6220 com/davesuniverse Email [email protected] Follow Dave Eicher RETAIL TRADE ORDERS AND INQUIRIES on Twitter: Selling Astronomy magazine or products in your store: @deicherstar Phone (800) 558-1544 Outside U.S. and Canada (262) 796-8776, ext. 818 Fax (262) 798-6592 Email [email protected] Website www.Retailers.Kalmbach.com CUSTOMER SALES AND SERVICE Phone (877) 246-4835 Outside U.S. and Canada (903) 636-1125 Customer Service [email protected] CONTACT US Ad Sales [email protected] Ask Astro [email protected] Books [email protected] Letters [email protected] Products [email protected] Reader Gallery [email protected] Editorial Phone (262) 796-8776 For reprints, licensing, and permissions: PARS International at www.parsintl.com Copyright © 2022 Kalmbach Media Co., all rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced in any form without permission. Printed in the U.S.A. Allow 6 to 8 weeks for new subscriptions and address changes. Single copy: $6.99 (U.S.). Print + digital subscription rate: U.S.: 1 year $58.95. Canadian: Add $12.00 postage. Canadian price includes GST, payable in U.S. funds. All other international: Add $22.00 postage, payable in U.S. funds, drawn on a U.S. bank. BN 12271 3209 RT. Not responsible for unsolicited materials. facebook.com/AstronomyMagazine twitter.com/AstronomyMag youtube.com/user/AstronomyMagazine instagram.com/astronomy.magazine 4 ASTRONOMY • NOVEMBER 2022

HOME-DOME AND PRO-DOME InsightCruises.com/LUXOR OBSERVATORIES ECLIPSE OF THE CENTURY CST# 2065380-40 Courtesy of NASA Scientific Visualization Studio Phone: 407-601-1975 • www.homedome.com 2023 ASTRONOMY ’S DEEP SPACE DEEP SPACE MYSTERIES MYSTERIES CALENDAR 2023 CALENDAR The world’s best-selling astronomy magazine brings you a FDOHQGDUȴOOHGZLWKGUDPDWLFLPDJHVRIQHEXODHVSLUDOJDOD[LHV Astronomy.com oaMbtCsTe9reerhrpcdv.uieemt:rryN.aNJAitsuS4oApv0/iirJs°tePitbnLrhlo-erCritsaaAhelttselmdacuathistteuk1d,r1eeipaca.rmtlaym.aSNindadmteumobrnindtuhmis.l)oavnisth(ib.NlVeeGanlluCnsig7ish0tv.is(0Aibll0leti)matedsaawren,lolactael star-forming regions, and other mysteries of deep space. SUNDAY 1 2 3 4 A5 UGUSTMONDAY mdaoynlitghh. tMtiamrse sets for an THIS CALENDAR INCLUDES: TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY Full Moon FRIDAY SATURDAY • Planet visibility, meteor showers, conjunctions, 67 8MFaurlliaMMooitnc,h2el:l3b2oprn.m, 1.818 Moon at perigee letthsaeseseprhb—txpetsoeichremetwrteoaoaihsvtnpbinnhrrTentuaytstreh.itrholoirpa1lhaotdaeNoddticpe.nseos2nmldnomAaaleTtitTeya0enegowievGlrtrShameosilhoda0lusidbollneenuAelwlyucpeutbeit3TabesyoswlrolnhunfAmslitiJaguihficj,ctletngnphaegonomcadhaoDtsoemneSo.whronceitwtornfytchmMavaposuipBotAtestsrsdodleipeknuihesMedtlotgesirtsa.nuplmfaiehanateaayoareetrgnit’rziadtIoootaeseseryrbNt.ratnptr.euoteNlcsknsssufbuttSnpxyelrLtwpiAhpGthstl2rimYedlrrhCaieasiivogAeefhafuaaoAcipoehcqiee3enisi0atCcls,unbitnsnyhntsrriSwnnOeulnoolareuematkdr0tosa“dteMo0tgtusbpitWurduanA.—trmiri7ennaagyhhu.,eo.fpmsdoenlt9aoasleaeAdtsc’aeahovnol0Ttaiadsn2esafsc-unfnyhar,tdbvohiicxeyauaetdhhsthiwe0nstosres0csSyderltcdalSiAaaetalgreeehemcedyebfsohen0ttlh2naoschpteenotprtdophhiunaeoioetluehonts-ef’abremiit0nbocruastiheivcgsestrutNs,sottwiugnuinoszreogeFtsns.sancziltelvwuoomittineiuertgmeinenfieevslhntlssihoaiatlshmesolonvmtrlglcbsorroeesfrNoroeesm”eroctrseed’rrttavc-ovouisioabeelohhfiSaatneooG,onad2imedovGtunpelwkslutskiehtalunbosrp-tiisCrh5oaelstesenuseblsisoemsiuoalaallipcsca,cr(oirmlviaisapbN7fftc’itattooaiakoocnsaitinciemele-r0eoibGanatenleofclgnutnh.winfl0lwsstdnenCfieooiilnarot..Mnsi0aftitug?auritngbB7hosnnahsehreradjuef0usIeesreNmtnxneel.Cdtn0caihaosdcxdiattt0a.asnerochsstls)rseei,ehtdfliwirnoopoanoNron-nen-okdro.rmthy, and other observing opportunities. Last Qtr 9 10Saturn 2° north of the Moon • Moon phases and major astronomical events. 11Neptune 1.5° north of the Moon 13 14Curiosity rover lands on Mars, 2012 12 • Stunning, high-quality space images. 15UJrLuaapnsiuttesQr3u3°a°rstseooruutMthhooooffnt,thh6ee:M2M8oooaon.nm. eMloenrgcautriyonat(2g7re°a) test eastern VMeangues,lla1n99ra0dar mapper arrives at • BONUS Tips for getting the most out of viewing the Moon! oAfsMapahrsH, 1al8l 7d7iscovers Deimos, moon 16 New Moon 17 PVeernseuisdinmientfeeorriosr conjunction 18 Perseid meteors 20 Perseid meteors 19 21 22 New Moon, 5:38 a.m. Moon at apogee 23 oAfsMapahrsH, 1al8l 7d7iscovers Phobos, moon MMPaearrsllca2us°ry1s.7o1°u°tshsooouuftthhthooeffMtthhoeeoMnMoooonn 24 25First Qtr 26John Flamsteed born, 1646 27 28 29 30Mercury stationary 31VAoFnyirtasagtreeQrsu21a.rfl1tiee°rssMopouaotshtn,No5fe:tp5ht7eunMae.,om1o.n989 Full Moon Order now! 2SV0po0ity3zaegreSrp2acfleieTsepleassctoSpaetularnu,n1ch9e8d1, MyScienceShop.com/CAL23 Saturn at opposition EWnUcirlaleianlamudsuHsset,armsticoohnoeanlryodfisScaotvuerrns, 1789 S JULY 2023 TWT F M Full Moon, 9:36 S S MSEPTTEMWBERT202F3 S Moon at perigee p.m. 23 4 5 6 7 1 11 12 13 14 8 Saturn 2° north of the Moon 9 10 18 19 20 21 15 3 4 5 6 7 12 16 17 25 26 27 28 22 10 11 12 13 14 23 24 29 17 18 19 20 21 89 30 31 24 25 26 27 28 15 16 22 23 29 30 P40468 Sales tax and retail delivery fee where applicable. WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 5

ASTRO LETTERS Illuminating Hubble was in South Dakota to run the Deadwood Mickelson Trail Marathon. Over the few days before the marathon, I read “The star that changed there had been sightings and reports of a mountain lion entering small towns and trying to catch pets that the cosmos” (August 2022) and were left outside. On the bus ride out to the marathon start, some of us were talking about the mountain lion. wish to thank you for the illu- Wondering if he might be out there watching the run- ners, someone asked what he might be thinking. The minating work. I have been an quick answer was “smorgasbord!” If the aliens have sensors that are good enough, they might be saying amateur astronomer for most the same thing. — Jim Bitgood, Laurel, MD of my retirement years and Erratum enjoy adventures in histori- In the AstroLetters section of our August 2022 issue, the photo caption incorrectly states the image is of a cal astronomy. In writing my rainbow, when in fact it is an iridescent cloud. This phenomenon occurs when small water droplets in In the fall of 1923, Edwin Hubble used the 100-inch book, The Andromeda Galaxy: clouds scatter the Sun’s light. In the case of a rainbow, Hooker telescope to target the Andromeda Nebula, A Guide to the Universe, I the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration tells and discovered the nature of galaxies. found that the work you us, “Light enters a water droplet, slowing down and describe in the article was a bending as it goes from air to denser water. The light NASA/MSFC/METEOROID ENVIRONMENT OFFICE/BILL COOKE reflects off the inside of the droplet, separating into its component wavelengths — or colors.” We welcome critical discovery in a long career of accomplishment by your comments Hubble. If one picture is worth a thousand words, then at Astronomy Letters, the glass photographic plate, H335H, is worth a million. P.O. Box 1612, It is unfortunate that after Hubble’s death, there was a Waukesha, WI 53187; great lack of appreciation shown for his work. — Donald or email to letters@ astronomy.com. Craig Jr., Indianapolis, IN Please include your name, city, state, and An alien appetizer country. Letters may be edited for space I couldn’t help but laugh when I read the letter “How and clarity. to announce aliens” in the July 2022 issue. In 2004, I It is all about exploration. TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE TOUR DESTINATIONS That is what Eclipse Traveler was founded upon and is what it is still all about. Exploring this 2023 BOOK amazing planet we all live on while viewing East Timor SOON a very rare astronomical event called Australia “Total Solar Eclipse”. Malaysia and more An unforgettable experience that includes local 2024 cuisine, accommodations and adventure. Mexico United States We look forward to exploring the world with you! 2027 ESO/R. Lucchesi Egypt Jordan A total eclipse experience provided by the experts at Eclipse Traveler Eclipse Traveler www.eclipsetraveler.com 6 ASTRONOMY • NOVEMBER 2022

QG QUANTUM GRAVITYEVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE UNIVERSE THIS MONTH ESA, NASA, NASA-JPL, CALTECH, CHRISTOPHER CLARK (STSCI), S. KIM (SEJONG UNIVERSITY), T. WONG (UIUC). BOTTOM FROM LEFT: NASA/GSFC; NASA/JPL-CALTECH/B. JÓNSSON; ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/H.AKINS (GRINNELL COLLEGE), B.SAXTON (NRAO/AUI/NSF) SNAPSHOT HOT BACK TO WORK BLUE GIANTS COMING OF AGE BYTES NASA’s Mars The subtle color Just 700 million COLORS Atmosphere and difference between years after the Big BURST Volatile EvolutioN our solar system’s ice Bang, A1689-zD1 is FROM (MAVEN) spacecraft giants arises because proving that early THE LMC returned to normal Uranus has slightly galaxies may be science operations more methane haze in larger than previously Retired missions May 28, after entering its atmosphere than thought. Scientists capture vibrant safe mode Feb. 22 Neptune, new research recently found that images of our due to an issue suggests. Neptune’s its halo of carbon cosmic neighbor. with its navigation upper atmosphere gas extends much systems. Engineers rids itself of methane farther than that of There might not be a pot of gold implemented a fix through snow more modern-day galaxies. at the end of this rainbowlike that allows MAVEN to efficiently than its twin. puff, but this view of the Large navigate by the stars. Magellanic Cloud (LMC) does offer a wealth of details about our satellite galaxy’s composition. The colorful image combines data from a trio of ground-based radio telescopes with data from four now-retired missions: the European Space Agency’s Herschel Space Observatory and Planck satellite, and NASA’s IRAS and COBE spacecraft. Researchers combined the infrared and radio images to get a better look at the density of dust clouds within the LMC. In the composite, hydrogen gas radiates in red around the edges of the LMC. The red “tail” (bottom) is likely the result of a collision with another of our satellite galaxies, the Small Magellanic Cloud, some 100 million years ago. Glints of cold dust (green) and warm dust (blue) fill the galaxy’s interior, indicating where young stars are forming. Bubbles devoid of color, seen near the center, are the result of winds from those newly formed stars blowing away the local gas and dust. — SAMANTHA HILL WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 7

QUANTUM GRAVITY ASTRONOMERS FIND undergoing an outburst or not, making THE FASTEST NOVA YET it a challenge to explain. The unique event may shed light on how “This oscillation was seen before the stellar eruptions help seed the universe. outburst, but it was also evident when the nova was some 10 magnitudes Classical novae occur when QUICK BURNOUT. In a binary system, matter [100,000 times] brighter,” said Mark a white dwarf — the dense, Wagner, a research scientist at Ohio fuel-depleted corpse of a Sun-like star stolen from a companion star flows into an State and co-author of the new study. — steals material from a companion accretion disk around a white dwarf, as in star. Once enough pilfered hydrogen this artist’s illustration. That material gets Astronomers suspect that the builds up on the white dwarf ’s surface, disturbed by the white dwarf’s magnetic 500-second span may be how long its immense gravity and temperature field, causing oscillating fluctuations in the it takes the white dwarf to rotate can trigger a runaway thermonuclear emitted light. MARK GARLICK once, which could offer some insight reaction, releasing 10,000 to 100,000 into this system’s structure. In most times more energy than our Sun does Starrfield discussed the record- systems that produce novae, the white in a year. Typically, a bright nova takes breaking nova, dubbed V1674 Herculis, dwarf is surrounded by an accretion a few weeks or longer to fade away. June 14 during a press conference at disk, pulling matter onto its surface But last year, a star — having the 240th meeting of the American at its equator. But some white dwarfs brightened some 10,000 times and Astronomical Society in Pasadena, can pull material from the inner disk reached magnitude 6.2 — plummeted California. A paper detailing the event into their magnetic fields, forming to one-sixth its peak brightness in was published the same day in Research glowing curtains of material that rain just one day. That’s two to three times Notes of the American Astronomical down on their poles. These systems faster than the previous fastest nova, Society. are called intermediate polars. As V838 Herculis, seen in 1991, said the white dwarf rotates, the angle at Sumner Starrfield, an astrophysicist at FAST AND FLUCTUATING which we view the accretion curtain Arizona State University who led a new changes, affecting its apparent study of the object, in a press release. V1674 Herculis also exhibits a subtle, brightness — which could be the periodic change in brightness in both source of the odd oscillation in the visible and X-ray wavelengths every brightness of V1674 Herculis. 500 seconds. This strange phenomenon seems to occur whether the system is Learning exactly what makes V1674 Herculis tick is key to understanding the role that novae play in enriching space with the variety of elements that we observe on Earth and in the universe today. “We’re always trying to figure out how the solar system formed, where the chemical elements in the solar system came from,” Starrfield said. “We’re fairly sure now that a significant fraction of the lithium that we have on the Earth was produced by these kinds of explosions.” — JAKE PARKS 6.6 The number of feet (2 meters) that Mars rovers may have to dig beneath the surface to find evidence of ancient microbial life that survived degradation from space radiation. 8 ASTRONOMY • NOVEMBER 2022

QUIET DEATH. Inside the binary system VFTS 243 may lie a hot, blue star and a black hole that QUICK TAKES researchers suspect never went supernova. Note that the objects are not to scale in this artist’s concept; in reality, the star is 200,000 times larger than the black hole. ESO/L. CALÇADA MIRROR, MIRROR Black hole debunkers The Devasthal Observatory in the discover a sleeping giant Indian Himalayas recently debuted FOR SIX YEARS, astronomers scoured stars in the Tarantula Nebula, thinking its International Liquid Mirror the Tarantula Nebula in the Large at least one of those stars might be in a Telescope. Instead of traditional solid Magellanic Cloud, searching for the binary with a black hole. glass, this 4-meter scope uses a slowly most elusive prey: a dormant black hole. rotating bowl of liquid mercury as its But after locating a candidate in Despite being massive objects, stellar- the system VFTS 243, they were still primary mirror. mass black holes can be incredibly dif- skeptical. Co-author Kareem El-Badry ficult to spot because they don’t radiate of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center AI INSIGHTS light. Instead, scientists must rely on for Astrophysics, whom Shenar refers indirect observations, such as watch- to as the “black hole destroyer,” said, An artificial intelligence algorithm that ing how nearby matter behaves, to infer “I had my doubts. But I could not find detects exoplanets crossing in front of their presence. The easiest method is to a plausible explanation for the data that look for the X-ray radiation produced did not involve a black hole.” That black their parent stars has provided new by the whorl of material flowing around hole is around nine times the mass of insight into general relativity by the black hole, called an accretion disk. the Sun and circles a 25-solar-mass blue giant star. reducing ambiguity in planets’ orbits. Researchers suspect that billions of It appears current models oversimplify stellar-mass black holes reside in our Notably, the researchers could not Local Group of galaxies, far more than find leftover debris from a supernova. some effects of mass and gravity identified to date. But because most of When a massive star reaches the end of bending light. those stellar-mass black holes are likely its life, it’s believed that its core collapses X-ray quiet, meaning they don’t have and the star’s outer layers are expelled DETAILED DATA an accretion disk emitting light, they in a supernova explosion. But known are incredibly difficult to spot. black holes have rarely been paired with On June 13, the third data release of supernova remnants. ESA’s Gaia mission provided new Which is why, when a collaboration details for some 2 billion Milky Way of international experts notorious for This black hole seems to be follow- refuting claims of so-called dormant ing that trend, its progenitor collapsing stars. The observatory also showed it black holes stumbled upon a candidate, entirely with no sign of an explosion — can detect starquakes, singled out they almost couldn’t believe it. “We a scenario known as a direct collapse. stars with chemical compositions identified a ‘needle in a haystack,’ ” said In this case, a star is so massive that its indicating they weren’t born in the study leader Tomer Shenar, a Marie- core collapses immediately into a black Milky Way, and captured data on Curie Fellow at Amsterdam University, hole, preventing a supernova blast. binary stars, asteroids, and quasars. the Netherlands, in a press release. “For the first time, our team got together to “Evidence for this ‘direct-collapse’ READY TO POUNCE report on a black hole discovery, instead scenario has been emerging recently,” of rejecting one.” Their findings were says Shenar, “but our study arguably The European Space Agency has published July 18 in Nature Astronomy. provides one of the most direct indica- approved Comet Interceptor for tions. This has enormous implications construction. This mission will launch To find this dormant black hole, the for the origin of black-hole mergers in in 2029 with no destination, but will lie team looked at almost 1,000 massive the cosmos.” — CAITLYN BUONGIORNO in wait for a potential target: a pristine comet that has never before visited the inner solar system, or perhaps an interstellar interloper. IN THE STARS TONIGHT In August, South Korea’s first lunar orbiter, Danuri, launched from Cape Canaveral. In addition to studying the Moon, the satellite will broadcast BTS’ song “Dynamite” to Earth to test a communications experiment. SPIN IT Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array have discovered rotation in a galaxy some 500 million years after the Big Bang — the earliest galaxy yet observed to spin. This indicates its stars were already mature and likely formed 200 million years earlier still. — ALISON KLESMAN WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 9

QUANTUM GRAVITY WHEN STARS SWALLOW THEIR PLANETS One day, the Sun will swell into a red giant, swallowing ZOOMING IN. An illustration shows a small portion of a star (right) after it Mercury, Venus, and potentially Earth and Mars in a process called planetary engulfment. has swallowed a planet, modeling how stellar material moves around the cannibalized world. The dashed line in the left panel shows how the To better understand what happens when an unlucky planet engulfed planet’s orbit decays as a result. RICARDO YARZA ET AL. suddenly finds itself inside its parent star, a team of researchers turned to complex models called hydrodynamical simulations. The work also showed that planets may survive engulfment if The results have been submitted to The Astrophysical Journal they can eject some of the star’s outer layers altogether. This could and were presented June 13 by lead author Ricardo Yarza of the explain why some white dwarfs — the remnants of Sun-like stars — University of California, Santa Cruz, at the 240th meeting of the have closely orbiting planets or brown dwarfs. “If you stir the cof- American Astronomical Society, in Pasadena, California. fee cup hard enough” with a massive object, “some of the coffee’s gonna spill out,” Yarza said. The energy exchange also shrinks the Planets are hundreds or thousands of times smaller than their object’s final orbit, leaving behind the systems we see today. parent star, so the team simplified the picture by only modeling the portion of the star’s atmosphere immediately surrounding Whether the planet survives and how it affects its parent star the planet. This revealed how the star’s gas interacts with the depends on several factors, including the world’s mass and the planet as drag transfers energy from the planet’s orbital motion age of its star. As a star progresses through its red giant phase, to the star’s interior. The energy exchange can pump up the its layers puff out and become more sensitive to disruption by star’s rotation, change its chemical composition, temporarily smaller objects. boost its brightness, or even eject some of its atmosphere. The researchers hope their work provides a starting point for “Think of the star as a cup of coffee and the planet as a future studies on the interactions between aging stars and swal- spoon,” Yarza said during his presentation. Just as stirring coffee lowed planets. By first understanding this zoomed-in model, other with a spoon makes the liquid rotate, “once the planet enters the teams can expand on the work to visualize the entire structure of star, it’s kind of stirring it up from the inside.” This could explain the parent star. — A.K. the faster-than-expected rotation of some evolved stars: Their long-gone planets bumped up their spin. Dehydrating Mars THE TARANTULA NEBULA LEAPS TO LIFE NASA’s Curiosity rover has been exploring Gale Crater for 10 years. In just the past year, the rover has entered a Arachnophobes beware: so-called transition zone, where a clay-rich region gives way to one filled with sulfates, a salty class of minerals. 30 Doradus, better known The mission’s team originally chose to explore two new regions rich in clay and sulfates to deepen our under- as the Tarantula Nebula, standing of Mars’ watery past. But now, they’re finding the transition zone between them includes a billion-year-old appears to crawl across record of the planet’s shifting climate. Curiosity has tracked evidence of ancient streams drying into trickles space in this photo. The (inset) and former streambeds shadowed by dry sand dunes (below), nebula is located in the a shift from the lakes that once Large Magellanic Cloud, called the area home. — C.B. a dwarf galaxy about 160,000 light-years away that is gravitationally bound to the Milky Way. ESO, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/WONG ET AL., ESO/M.-R. CIONI/VISTA According to research MAGELLANIC CLOUD SURVEY. ACKNOWLEDGMENT: CAMBRIDGE BOTH: NASA/JPL-CALTECH/MSSS published June 15 in The ASTRONOMICAL SURVEY UNIT Astrophysical Journal, the Tarantula’s dense clouds of cold car- bon monoxide are collapsing under the weight of self-gravity to form new stars. This goes against astronomers’ expectations: Those same young stars should be releasing enough energy to blow the clouds away. Yet, even in regions of the cloud where the gas should be too chaotic to collapse, gravity is prevailing, allowing star formation to proceed. — S.H. 10

X-RAY: NASA/CXC/DUBLIN INST. ADVANCED STUDIES/S. GREEN ET AL.; INFRARED: NASA/JPL/SPITZERA MYSTERIOUS Miniature Inner Planet OrreryOLOGY NikonRUNAWAYThis orrery shows the correct motions of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Moon, and Mars to 1% accuracy. Driven by Zeta (ζ) Ophiuchi (at a knob below the base, it’s a delightful demonstration center) is a runaway star that escaped its binary of the motions of our planetary neighbors. system when its partner went supernova over a Made from aircraft million years ago. Located grade aluminum 440 light-years from Earth, and brass, the it zips through space orrery measures at roughly 53,000 mph 4 inches across. (86,000 km/h) and forms a shock wave that heats the Email [email protected] surrounding interstellar gas, shown in hues of red and www.armstrongmetalcrafts.com green in this iconic image from the Spitzer Space THE UNIVERSE AWAITS Telescope. But a new analy- sis of X-ray observations EYEPIECE TECHN from the Chandra X-ray Observatory published WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 11 May 26 in Astronomy and Astrophysics has found a wrinkle. While stronger than expected, the X-ray emission mostly comes from a hot bubble (super- imposed in blue) around the star — not from the hot gas compressed by the bow shock, as some models predict. More modeling will be required to better understand the complicated physics within Zeta Oph’s shock wave. — MARK ZASTROW

STRANGE UNIVERSE Galaxy-sized ego But “petty” never lurks too far in the distance. As a teenager, I loved the constellations so much that I memorized their every naked-eye star — which is not Astronomy can inflate your sense of self-worth — or diminish it. as hard as it sounds, since there are only a few hundred named stars even when you include all the Bayer (Greek letter) designations. But I quickly learned that regurgitating them excited no one. People love hearing facts about the night sky, but someone reciting a bunch of faint stars in some constellation? Nobody wants to sit through that. Nonetheless, I felt pride and accomplishment. I could barely restrain myself from blurting out, “Go ahead, ask me the name of any star!” It was ego, plain and simple. Psychologists say that showing off commonly comes not from superiority but its opposite: a feeling of insecurity. So I know it’s not a healthy urge to want to tell every visitor the cost of my 5-inch Takahashi refractor, pier, and mount — even though I’m aware that many people are impressed by an object’s price tag. (I feel it myself when a friend says his new electric car set him back more than $100,000. Why can’t I play that game too?) Clearly, astronomy has the potential to enhance ego. But it can also diminish it. Part of that is the venerable Eastern belief that ego solely arises from your sense of self, which astronomy’s visuals often suppress: An awesome object like Saturn puts us “in our place” by extinguishing our imagined self-importance. An excellent example may have been Albert Einstein. Few were as smart as he was, yet he arrived at humility Looking at stunning astronomical scenes can reduce our sense of self-importance by putting through his knowledge. He believed that humans don’t us in our place within the universe, so to speak. NASA, ESA, V. KSOLL AND D. GOULIERMIS (UNIVERSITÄT HEIDELBERG), even have free will, but merely deterministically obey ET AL.; PROCESSING: GLADYS KOBER (NASA/CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA) nature’s laws. “This awareness of the lack of free will keeps me from taking myself and my fellow It’s almost a cliché that the astron- men too seriously,” he wrote. It was the omy passion produces a sense of Vast science epitome of selflessness, since it’s hard to grandeur — the joyous experience knowledge think of anything more egoless than refusing of being taken outside of oneself. Little dis- need not to even credit oneself with the power to do cussed is its ability to create the opposite: an anything. inflated feeling of self-worth. create pride, So, it appears vast science knowledge need Ego was a big topic when I was finishing but can not create pride, but can produce the oppo- site effect by endowing us with appreciation college in the ’60s. Eastern philosophy was produce the of nature’s ironclad operations. Certainly, suddenly popular, along with the idea that to opposite gazing with quiet attention at a distant swirl- fully “grok” nature’s myriad manifestations, you had to be free of your own chattering mind effect. ing nebula that’s fashioning a family of blue and its biases. Some of us performed peace- suns right before our eyes — well, how can inducing meditations or went to South Asia, this not make our own lives richer? BY BOB BERMAN but it seemed the people seriously involved in Having now departed our “strange uni- Bob’s recent book, an outdoor hobby — birdwatching or hiking, say — also verse” and arrived at a familiar clichéd conclusion, I Earth-Shattering acquired the appreciation of nature that is the antithesis should cease pressing any further keys. Even if it’s hard (Little, Brown and of self-absorption. Astronomy, of course, accomplishes to shut up. Because of — well, you know. Company, 2019), this effortlessly. As 19th-century American astronomer explores the greatest Maria Mitchell wrote, “Standing under the canopy of the BROWSE THE “STRANGE UNIVERSE” ARCHIVE cataclysms that have stars, you can scarcely do a petty deed.” AT www.Astronomy.com/Berman shaken the universe. 12 ASTRONOMY • NOVEMBER 2022

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OBSERVING BASICS Unlocking Visible as a single 2nd-magnitude star, Algol is actually a tight eclipsing binary system comprised of a hot and variable stars bright main-sequence star paired with a cooler and dim- mer subgiant. The two complete an orbit every 2.87 days, and because their orbits are edge-on to our line of sight, A star changing brightness is a captivating affair. they periodically eclipse one another. A deep (primary) eclipse occurs when the fainter star passes in front of its brighter partner. When this happens, Algol fades from Nd Eclipse times for Algol magnitude 2.1 to 3.4. (The secondary eclipse is too small 3.8 to detect without specialized equipment.) Date Time 2.9 If you’re up to experiencing an Algol eclipse, here’s a 1.8 Fri., Oct. 28 1:35 A.M. EDT what you need to do. First, equip yourself with a clipboard, _ Sun., Oct. 30 10:23 P.M. EDT pencil, red-filtered flashlight, and a watch or smartphone Thurs., Nov. 17 2:17 A.M. EST to keep track of time. The clipboard should hold a blank 3.0 b Sat., Nov. 19 11:06 P.M. EST sheet of paper and a copy of the Algol field chart at left. E Tues., Nov. 22 7:55 P.M. EST Next, use the accompanying table to select a date and time g 3.8 Sat., Dec. 10 12:49 A.M. EST for an upcoming eclipse. From beginning to end, each ¡ Mon., Dec. 12 9:38 P.M. EST eclipse lasts about 10 hours. Fortunately, Algol is nearly 2.9 Algol Thurs., Dec. 15 6:27 P.M. EST at maximum brightness in the early and late hours of the ` Fri., Dec. 30 2:32 A.M. EST eclipse. You’ll catch most of the action by starting your j 4.1 5° observations three hours before mid-eclipse and continu- l ing for another three hours afterward. 3.4 Arguably, a hobby’s greatest benefit is derived Step outside about 10 to 15 minutes before this time to PERSEUS dark-adapt your eyes and familiarize yourself with the location of Algol and surrounding comparison stars. ck Their magnitudes are labeled in green on the Algol field 2.9 3.9 To estimate the changing brightness of a variable star, such as Algol (Beta [β] Persei), from its rewards. I’ve been an avid backyard chart. When ready, make an initial magnitude estimate it’s best to directly astronomer for 60 years. I still recall the night of Algol. Simply find a nearby star that’s equal in bright- compare it to other in 1963 when my high school friend Ray Gerbi showed ness to Algol and jot down the time and magnitude. Don’t nearby stars of known magnitudes (marked me Saturn and its rings through his 80x Gilbert reflecting fret over accuracy; the data you collect are for your eyes above in green). The telescope. That experience and a penchant for writing only. Your goal is simply to document the behavior of an eclipse times for Algol paved my way to this column, which has rewarded me eclipsing variable. While most visual observers of Algol- between late October and the end of the year countless times over the years (more on that next month). type variables make their estimates every 10 to 15 minutes, are listed in the table As for the observational aspect of backyard you’ll get decent results by checking in every at right. CHART: ASTRONOMY: 20 to 30 minutes. After returning indoors, astronomy, no activity has rewarded me more ROEN KELLY. ECLIPSE TIMES: RASC OBSERVER’S HANDBOOK than variable star observing. After briefly Variable graph your data using time as your X-axis and toying with beginner-level variables like R stars have magnitude as your Y-axis. When you connect Leonis, I joined the American Association of rewarded me these points, you will have created a light Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) in 1980. some 80,000 curve of Algol’s eclipse. Pretty neat, eh? Since then, I’ve forwarded more than 80,000 If you only have time for a quick look, make visual brightness estimates of variable stars times over! an estimate of Algol’s magnitude a few hours to this noble organization. Each one wound before a predicted minimum. Then, when it is up in a database that the AAVSO makes avail- close to its maximum brightness, repeat at the able to astronomers worldwide. In other words, variable time of mid-eclipse. You’ll be amazed at the difference! stars have rewarded me some 80,000 times over! If your experience with Algol piques your interest in You don’t have to become an avid variable star variable stars, I encourage you to find out more about this observer like me, but if you’ve never witnessed a star rewarding activity. Your best source is the AAVSO website change brightness, I urge you to at least give it a try. The (www.aavso.org), where you’ll find a how-to guide for BY GLENN CHAPLE typical variable star fades from maximum to minimum beginners and a list of easy-to-observe variables. Glenn has been an brightness and back over a period of days, months, or Questions, comments, or suggestions? Email me at avid observer since even years. But now I’m going to introduce you to one a friend showed that dims and bounces back in just a matter of hours. [email protected]. Next month: A final bow. Clear him Saturn through Moreover, it’s bright enough to view with the unaided skies! a small backyard eye. Without further ado, our one-night variable star is scope in 1963. the eclipsing binary Algol (Beta [β] Persei). BROWSE THE “OBSERVING BASICS” ARCHIVE AT www.Astronomy.com/Chaple 14 ASTRONOMY • NOVEMBER 2022

BINOCULAR UNIVERSE Play ball! his lead. That runner is Psi (ψ) Pegasi, a 5th-magnitude star off the baseline and inside the infield. You’ll probably Celebrate the end of the season with a celestial ballgame. need binoculars to spot it. Like Scheat at home plate, Psi is also a red giant. Can you spot its ruddy tint? Between Alpheratz and Psi is a fainter star, 85 Pegasi. N Giant binoculars will show that 85 is not one but two stars separated by about 33\". The brighter of the pair ANDROMEDA Stephan’s NGC shines at 6th magnitude, while its companion only 7331 ranks 9th. Alpheratz Quintet 85 Pegasi And what’s on second? It’s Algenib (Gamma [γ] d Pegasi), another blue-white subgiant. Scheat Markab (Alpha Pegasi) has been on third for some E s +f g 200 million years. Markab is a subgiant star that po h 9 appears pure white through binoculars. You wouldn’t Great Square know by looking at it, but Markab rotates at the break- of Pegasus PEGASUS neck speed of around 290,000 mph (468,000 km/h). Our Sun spins at only 4,400 mph (7,100 km/h). Algenib 1 Delphinus Minor Markab Wait a minute. It looks like our catcher is conferring j with the pitcher near the mound. Aim your binoculars c Enif about a third of the way from Scheat to Algenib to find 10° the catcher, Tau (τ), and the pitcher, Upsilon (υ) Pegasi. e Both shine near magnitude 4.5, so may be visible even without binoculars on clear nights. They are separated Who do you think Baseball may have ended last month with the by about a degree and form a nice pair through 4x to 6x wins this cosmic pocket binoculars. ballgame? ASTRONOMY: If you look about halfway between third base and ROEN KELLY World Series, but you can keep the season home, west (right) of the baseline, you may notice four going into extra innings by gazing up at the faint stars in a diamond spanning ½°, with a fifth star Great Square of Pegasus throughout autumn. That’s just ¾° southwest. That little asterism is called how the Great Square was introduced to me Delphinus Minor after its resemblance to decades ago: as a celestial baseball diamond. the constellation Delphinus. Who knew that The star Scheat, or Beta (β) Pegasi if you I like to keep the Dolphins also played baseball! prefer, marks home plate at the square’s the season The Great Ballfield of Pegasus has more northwest corner. This red giant appears going into more orange through binoculars, but defo- than its fair share of outfielders as well as fans cusing the field slightly will heighten the extra in the stands, but there’s a special fan seated behind home plate. Spiral galaxy NGC 7331 color. When we look toward Scheat, we are innings by is sometimes called Andromeda Junior for its looking at our future Sun, which will evolve gazing up at miniaturized resemblance to the Andromeda into a red giant in around 5 billion years. Galaxy. This fan gets a great view of our the Great umpire star, Matar (Eta [η] Pegasi), which Who’s on first? On Pegasus’ cosmic team, Square of lives just 4.5° south-southeast. Lying about Alpheratz (Alpha [α] Andromedae), a blue- white inferno, is at first base. Pegasus. 45 million light-years away, Matar shines at Technically, first base is in foul territory just 10th magnitude, making it a challenging since it resides in Andromeda, not Pegasus target in binoculars. Through my 10x50s, like the rest of our celestial diamond. But this all-star I can just make out its faint, oval glow northeast does have a second (outdated) designation: Delta (δ) of an arc of faint stars. Can you spy it? Pegasi. When Johann Bayer published the Uranometria Comments, questions, sugges- in 1603, he designated stars in each constellation using tions? Contact me through my BY PHIL Greek letters and gave Alpheratz this other designation. website, philharrington.net. BASEBALL AND BAT: PICTAC/DREAMSTIME HARRINGTON And although the International Astronomical Union Until next month, remem- Phil received the eliminated this and several other duplicate star desig- ber that two eyes are better Walter Scott Houston nations in 1930, I think we can still count Alpheratz on than one. Award at Stellafane our team. 2018 for his lifelong BROWSE THE “BINOCULAR UNIVERSE” ARCHIVE AT work promoting and On the opposing team, it looks like there’s a runner on www.Astronomy.com/Harrington teaching astronomy. first who is thinking about stealing second, judging by WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 15



The Leonids promise to dazzle this year This meteor shower should be great. Here’s how to make the most of it. TThe Leonids, arguably history’s BY STEPHEN JAMES O’MEARA most important annual meteor shower, may have a treat in store across the globe with multiple ways to determine the brightness for us this November. Classically, encore performances, one of which of expected meteors, but surprises the shower peaks each year in could be a dazzler. What’s more, are always a possibility. mid-November. But the 2022 show with a waning Moon setting before may captivate those at key locations the best viewing opportunities The Leonid meteor shower begin, this year offers observers occurs when Earth sails through TOP: A Leonid meteor fireball photobombed great opportunities to capture a trail of particles released from a composition image Tony Hebert was the most of any activity. the periodic comet 55P/Tempel- taking of the Milky Way in September 2018. Tuttle. This comet orbits the Sun Meteor showers are curious once every 33 years and crosses TONY HEBERT phenomena. While astronomers Earth’s orbit along the way. are becoming ever more precise Typically, Leonid activity starts BOTTOM LEFT: Two Leonids cut through in their predictions of when maxi- around Nov. 14, peaks around Cassiopeia above Sapello, New Mexico, mum shower activity will occur, Nov. 17, and ends around Nov. 21. in 1998. JOHN CHUMACK the number of meteors one will BOTTOM RIGHT: The aurora borealis takes see with the unaided eyes at any The nucleus of 55P/Tempel- a back seat to the Leonid meteor shower in Tuttle is relatively small, measuring given location is less certain. just over 2.2 miles (3.6 kilometers) the skies above Palmer, Alaska. MATT SKINNER Researchers are also exploring across. The dusty fragments it WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 17

55P/TEMPEL-TUTTLE’S ORBIT Mercury trail of ionized atoms that Sun remains in the meteor’s wake. So, given that the Leonid Earth meteors are not only bright but also swift and colorful, Mars just spotting a few Leonids can make a night’s observing 55P/Tempel-Tuttle memorable. And if Russian at perihelion: 0.964 AU meteor scientist Mikhail Maslov and Nippon Meteor 55P/Tempel-Tuttle Society member Mikiya Sato at aphelion: 19.96 AU are correct, we may be in for a surprise following the Saturn Leonids’ traditional peak. Jupiter Each time 55P/Tempel- Uranus Tuttle rounds the Sun, it sheds debris, which solar wind and 1 astronomical unit (AU) is the average Earth-Sun distance gravitational interactions can mold into dense streams of leaves behind in its orbit, a spectacle as bright as the ABOVE: Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle material. These streams, which create the Leonid mete- Full Moon. next reaches closest approach, or spaced out along the comet’s ors, are minute in comparison perihelion, in 2031. ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY orbit at specific locations, — most have sizes similar to Normally, Leonid peak orbit the Sun either ahead of granules of instant coffee. But rates can be as low as one LEFT: The Midcourse Space or behind the comet. As Earth when these fragments collide meteor every six minutes Experiment satellite captured the crosses 55P/Tempel-Tuttle’s with our atmosphere, friction (even under perfect condi- 1997 Leonid meteor shower from orbit, it will encounter what- heats the air around the mov- tions), but more outstanding space. NASA ever streams of dust happen ing particles, causing them to displays occur once every to be present at that time. glow. The result: fiery streaks 33 years or so — sometimes shower is not expected to in the sky, popularly known reaching storm level, with at storm, it may dazzle — but This year, a strong out- as shooting or falling stars. least 1,000 meteors per hour, not on the night of its tradi- burst of Leonid meteors is or what I call super-storm tional peak, at least according possible on Nov. 19 from a Among the swiftest mete- levels of 100,000 meteors or to some meteor scientists. debris stream shed by the ors, the Leonids pack a more per hour, when the comet in 1733. Maslov pre- punch. Fragments penetrate heavens appear to weep. The International Meteor dicts the event at 6 A.M. UT, Earth’s atmosphere at Organization lists this year’s while Sato predicts it a little 44 miles per second Leonids to dazzle classical maximum at later, between 6:20 A.M. and (71 km/s). The smallest par- in 2022? 11 P.M. UT on Nov. 17, with 6:27 A.M. UT. Sato predicts a ticles create swift, needlelike a zenithal hourly rate (ZHR) ZHR of 50 or more meteors streaks. Larger fragments While the 2022 Leonid of 10 to 15 meteors per hour. per hour. Maslow goes even (those the size of a pea or The ZHR is the calculated further: Despite uncertainties, slightly bigger) can create maximum number of meteors he says it’s possible the out- fireballs as magnificent as a skilled observer would burst will produce a ZHR Venus or brighter. When seen expect to see in one hour of 250 or more meteors — from rural locations, these under a perfectly dark and many of which will be much fireballs sometimes brighten clear sky with the shower brighter than average. Either the landscape enough to cast radiant overhead. Most option offers exciting possi- shadows. If you’re extremely observers usually see only bilities. If the outburst occurs, fortunate, a Leonid fragment a fraction of the ZHR value. it will favor observers in west- the size of your fist can create ern Europe, Africa, and the Occasionally, the brightest East Coast of North America. meteors can leave persistent glowing trains — a cylindrical The activity period could be brief. But if it lasts longer, observers farther west may get lucky as well. Viewers along the East Coast of North America and perhaps those in the Central time zone may 18 ASTRONOMY • NOVEMBER 2022

benefit from some exceptional On top of planning the timing, the radiant, the longer its sights, especially from meteors consider preselecting path. It’s important to know that strike Earth’s atmosphere where the shower radiant lies, tangentially while the radiant a dark-sky site to increase your however, as you will need to is just on the rise. Such mete- chances of seeing fainter trace the meteor’s path back ors can have long durations, to make sure any meteor you upping the “wow” factor. meteors. If you remain too close see is not sporadic — a rogue to a bright city, you’ll only be able meteor whose path cannot A weaker supernumerary be traced back to a specific peak may also occur Nov. 18 to see the brightest meteors. source. at 7 A.M. UT, as Earth encoun- ters a debris trail left by a the best way to approach this from that radiant. Shower A nighttime treat passage around the year 1600, year’s Leonid shower is to meteors near or at the radiant and a possible spike in activity prepare for a five-day, early- may appear as a short, swift I can’t expound enough on could happen Nov. 21 at 3 P.M. morning vigil Nov. 16–21. flash or a point source that why these displays are worth UT, as Earth encounters an swells. Meteors farther from your while. If Nov. 19 pro- 1800 debris stream. Imagine Earth as a car the radiant will take the form duces anything at all like the speeding down the highway. of longer streaks of light. display I saw on the morning How best Just as bugs more frequently Both are remarkable, so split of Nov. 16, 1999, it should to observe splatter onto the front your time between looking at not be missed. windshield than the rear the radiant and slightly away. The shower’s radiant (for windshield, so too will On that morning, the star chart, see Sky This Leonid meteors appear to In the latter case, it’s best observers at some Month on page 29) does not smash more frequently into to focus your attention on an lucky locations across rise until local midnight and Earth’s atmosphere as our area some 20° to 40° (two to the globe saw a splendid will be highest from your planet races forward into the four fist-widths) away from shower of about 250 fire- location only before dawn. comet’s debris stream. the radiant and about halfway balls per hour fall from the And luckily, pre-dawn view- up the sky, as you will cover heavens. And while this was ing times are the best for Where should you look? more area. The same advice not a storm, the grandeur meteor observing because While the paths of shower generally applies for those and magnitude of the mete- that’s when your observing meteors can be traced back to wanting to image the event. ors will be forever etched on site begins to swing headlong a point in the Sickle of Leo, my mind — especially con- into the debris stream. So most appear as streaks of As a general rule, the sidering that a weird flashing light some distance away farther a meteor is from through my bedroom win- dow woke me up that night. Once outside, I saw 30 daz- zling fireballs and four other meteors fall from the Sickle of Leo over 45 minutes. Even if numbers like that don’t materialize this year, given that the Leonids are already noted for their bril- liance, any increase in bright- ness or number will be a welcome sight come Nov. 19. Ultimately, although we don’t know if any of the 2022 Leonid events will visually shock and awe, it’s best to be prepared for whatever the shower tosses our way. As always, with meteor observing, expect the unexpected! This photo taken Stephen James O’Meara is during the 1998 shower captured six a globe-trotting observer who is Leonid meteors. always looking for the next great celestial event. JOHN CHUMACK WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 19

What kids should Know about sPACEFLI From Sputnik to PROFESSIONAL AND AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS alike spacesuits, here’s love to share facts about our amazing universe: “The brightest what every child star is…,” “A black hole is…,” and lots more. These facts are so should learn about incredible that we sometimes overlook our own little corner of the our new space age. cosmos and how humans have ventured into it. Space exploration, however, goes hand in hand with astronomy. So, I’ve come up with BY MICHAEL E. BAKICH a list of 15 simple facts about spaceflight that you can share with your children — or with your non-astronomer friends.

SpaceX’s Starship sheds its booster stage en route to Earth orbit in this artist’s concept. SPACEX 1Russia was first. Neil Armstrong was the first man on the Moon — but only a few pictures from the crew’s cameras show Yep, Russia (then the main country him on his historic moonwalk. In one of them (upper right), he is visible as a reflection in Buzz Aldrin’s of the Soviet Union) beat the U.S. in helmet. After he returned to the Lunar Module, he posed for Aldrin’s camera (lower right). NASA spaceflight pretty much every step of the way until NASA landed people on 2Space begins above 3rockets were the Moon. The first artificial satellite — our atmosphere. invented long ago. Sputnik, launched Oct. 4, 1957 — was Russian. So was the first human in space, Believe it or not, there is a legal definition The Chinese invented rockets per- Yuri Gagarin, who also became the first for where space begins. That’s because haps as early as the 10th century. person to orbit Earth. That happened the movements of spacecraft are regu- Some historians date their first April 12, 1961. The first woman in space lated by different treaties than those of recorded use to 1232. Early Chinese was also Russian. Valentina Tereshkova aircraft. Most countries use the Kármán rockets used gunpowder as fuel, orbited Earth 48 times starting June 16, line, which is named for Hungarian- so they were a lot like fireworks. 1963. She’s also the only woman who ever American physicist Theodore von Soldiers attached an arrow to each flew a mission to space alone. Kármán, the first person to calculate an rocket and launched them at their altitude where space begins. The Kármán enemies during battles. By the 15th line lies 62 miles (100 kilometers) above century, militaries around the world sea level. had adopted rocket technology. WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 21

4 Robert Goddard Robert Goddard built the first rocket to use historians think started the race to land was a pioneer liquid fuel, a more sophisticated form of rocket a person on the Moon didn’t come from rocket man. propulsion than earlier solid-fuel rockets. NASA this speech. Instead, it came from an address to Congress May 25, 1961, in Goddard was an American inventor 6Alan Shepard was which Kennedy said, “I believe that this who built the first liquid-fueled rocket. first for the U.S. nation should commit itself to achiev- Historians credit the launch of his first ing the goal, before this decade is out, rocket, on March 16, 1926, with starting Shepard was a naval pilot and one of landing a man on the Moon and the modern age of rocketry. Over the of seven people chosen for Project returning him safely to the Earth.” And next decade, he and his team launched Mercury, NASA’s first space program. although Kennedy didn’t live to see it, several dozen rockets, which traveled as On May 5, 1961, he became the first in July 1969, the U.S. did exactly that. fast as 550 mph (885 km/h) and as high American and the second person in as 1.6 miles (2.6 km). space. In 1971, he became the fifth 8Neil Armstrong was astronaut — and, at age 47, the oldest first on the Moon. Sputnik was not very big — weighing just — to walk on the Moon. 185 pounds (84 kg) — but it made a big impact, This naval pilot entered the astronaut including kickstarting the U.S. space program. NASA 7The “Moon race” program in 1962. He first flew into began with a speech. space in 1966 aboard Gemini 8. That 5Sputnik changed mission featured the first docking of two everything. On Sept. 12, 1962, President John F. spacecraft in orbit. Later, he was named Kennedy gave a speech to a crowd commander of the historic Apollo 11 If the question is “When did the Space of about 40,000 at Rice University mission, the first human Moon landing. Age start?”, the answer is “When Stadium in Houston, Texas. Among Sputnik was launched.” In the 1950s, other things, Kennedy said, “We In 1965, Ed White became the first U.S. astronaut to the Soviet Union was in a race with choose to perform a spacewalk — though in reality, it was the U.S. to be the first country to send go to the more of a spacefloat. NASA a satellite into space. Scientists and Moon in this engineers on both sides spent years decade and 9Spacewalks aren’t trying to reach this goal. Then, on do the other really walks. Oct. 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched things, not Sputnik 1, which became Earth’s first because they Many astronauts have completed an artificial satellite (i.e., one launched by are easy, but extravehicular activity (EVA) in space. humans). Sputnik had four radio anten- because they Astronauts often refer to this as a space- nas and measured 23 inches (58 cen- are hard.” walk. But usually, that term means timeters) across. It orbited Earth once However, going outside a vessel in orbit, attached every 96 minutes and 12 seconds. The The line by a cord. radio transmitter Sputnik carried only that most sent back beeps. It worked for three In 1965, the Soviet cosmonaut Alexei weeks until the batteries ran out. And In his 1962 address at Rice University, John F. Leonov became the first human to walk although the message was simple, it Kennedy sought to galvanize and convince the in space. The journey, during his seemed to tell every radio operator on U.S. that it could achieve the goal he had set the Voskhod 2 mission, lasted 12 minutes. Earth who listened to it, “The Soviet year before: landing a man on the Moon “before The first U.S. spacewalk took place later Union is in space.” this decade is out.” NASA in 1965, when astronaut Ed White walked in space for 23 minutes during the Gemini 4 mission. 22 ASTRONOMY • NOVEMBER 2022

10That’s a long ANATOMY OF A SPACESUIT time in space. A spacesuit is practically its own spacecraft, designed to protect the wearer from Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov the harsh space environment and keep them cocooned in a breathable atmosphere. spent 437 days and 18 hours on a single trip to space, the longest ever Here is a breakdown of some of the major parts of a suit. by any human. He launched to the Mir space station Jan. 8, 1994, and Helmet: Portable ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY, AFTER NASA returned to Earth March 22, 1995. The Life Support longest spaceflight by a woman is 328 The iconic gold coating System days. NASA astronaut Christina Koch on spacesuit helmets (PLSS): launched to the International Space blocks UV rays. Station March 14, 2019. She returned The systems inside to Earth Feb. 6, 2020. Display and this backpacklike Control Module: device regulate the 11This crew went environment inside the fastest. This unit’s control panel the suit, circulating allows an astronaut to oxygen, removing On May 26, 1969, the crew of NASA’s operate the PLSS. moisture, and keeping Apollo 10 mission (Thomas Stafford, the suit pressurized. John Young, and Eugene Cernan) Hard Upper Communications reached a speed of 24,791 mph (39,897 Torso (HUT): equipment is also km/h), or about 32 times faster than the installed in the PLSS. speed of sound on Earth at sea level. Made of fiberglass, the HUT is the solid core Gloves: 12 Spaceflight to which all the other is dangerous. parts of the suit attach. Spacesuit gloves contain heaters for As of this writing, 30 humans have been Lower torso: astronauts’ fingers; killed in the pursuit of outer space. Six since fingers are were Soviet or Russian cosmonauts, This includes a series of extremities, they get rings that astronauts can cold quickly in space. one was Israeli, and use to tether themselves the rest were U.S. to a spacecraft so they Cooling astronauts. Of these, don’t float away. garments: 11 were killed dur- ing training or test Colored The innermost flights and 19 were stripes: layer of a killed in actual spacesuit is flight. The latter Different combinations underwear lined group includes two of colored stripes are with water tubes seven-person crews used to identify to carry away aboard the space astronauts. heat and keep shuttles Challenger astronauts cool. and Columbia, which were 13Spacesuits are NASA’s spacesuits took a big leap destroyed during important. forward with the Apollo missions. atmospheric flight. These suits were larger and made so The three-man crew Space is a harsh environment. It’s astronauts could walk around on the of Soyuz 11 are the extremely cold and there’s no atmo- Moon for hours. The suits were fire- only people to have sphere. Plus, human beings are pretty proof and had a liquid cooling system died in space. fragile creatures. So, exploring space inside. The outer layer protected astro- means using special suits that allow nauts from possible strikes from When SpaceX astronauts to breathe and stay at the micrometeoroids, tiny particles of rock successfully flies the right temperature. that zip through space at high speeds. Falcon Super Heavy and its upper stage, Starship, In 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin Space shuttle astronauts wore par- it will take the record for wore the first spacesuit; since then, tially pressurized suits adapted from the largest rocket ever they have come a long way. In the U.S., the Air Force. And shuttle astronauts flown. SPACEX the Project Mercury spacesuits were on spacewalks used the advanced just a bit different from the jumpsuits extravehicular mobility unit, which worn by fighter pilots. Each had a gave them a lot more protection. bubble-shaped helmet and its own air supply. The Gemini suits were more Future spacesuits will be even bet- advanced and there were several types. ter. New models are already being One was for wearing inside the space- used by SpaceX astronauts and will craft, while others were for be used by the men and women who spacewalks. journey back to the Moon. WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 23

A BOOK YOUR SPACE EXPLORATIONA CHILD’S INTRODUCTION TO shuttle crews, NASA needed to rethink KIDS WILL ENJOY An EBAxKpIlCoHraeannrd’dsDALGViufIDeidJie.nEtIZCoeHRrEoRocGkIrellautsvstir,taAytedstbryoCnHaEuLEtsN,ECIJA their toilet design. It was called the RIeNmCLoUvDaEbS lAe Waste Collection System. The opening MICHAEL E. Poster was much smaller than a regular toilet hole, so an astronaut’s aim had to Check out A Child’s Introduction to Space be good! Today, astronauts on the Exploration: An Explorer’s Guide to Rockets, International Space Station use a much Astronauts, and Life in Zero Gravity (Black Dog larger toilet and a vacuum sucks waste and Leventhal, 2022), written by Astronomy away. The waste then goes into a con- Editor David J. Eicher and Contributing Editor tainer that its jettisoned and burns up in Earth’s atmosphere. Using the bath- Michael E. Bakich, and room in space is still a pain, but it’s a illustrated by Chelen lot better than it was. Écija. It’s packed with dozens of NASA photos, illustrations, and a pull-out poster, and contains STEM 15The future looks activities that will help kids of all ages better understand the bright. science behind humanity’s greatest adventure. Copies of the book signed by the authors can be ordered at MyScienceShop.com. The U.S., Russia, China, India, and other nations are all active with big 14Astronauts use The first one was connected to a plans for their space programs. And DAVID WOODS/DREAMSTIME the bathroom plastic tube, a valve, a clamp, and a col- rather than governments lection bag. It wasn’t great because it being the only play- in space. sometimes leaked. In 1962, John Glenn ers in space, private used one on his five-hour flight. companies are now Bathrooms became very important for joining the effort. Alan Shepard, NASA’s first astronaut. Because the Gemini flights were a lot SpaceX, Blue There was no toilet because the flight longer than earlier ones, NASA finally Origin, Virgin would last only 15 minutes. Nobody had to deal with poop in space. The first Galactic, and thought that he might have to wait equipment was pretty simple: a bag that more are get- in his capsule for about four hours the astronauts taped to their butts. ting involved in before the launch. When he asked to NASA’s first space station, Skylab, space travel. go, the command crew first said no, needed a toilet because astronauts but finally said OK — but he couldn’t would be living in space for months. The U.S. and leave the capsule. Luckily, the air flow- Unfortunately, it was just a hole in the China both have ing through his suit dried everything wall with a fan for suction and a bag. plans to return out before the launch. After that, NASA humans to the Moon. designed equipment to deal with pee. With women as part of the space Japan and South Korea are planning their first robotic lunar- landing missions, too. Several countries, space organizations, and companies would also like to send humans to Mars. This would be an extremely expensive, time-consuming, and dangerous endeavor. Many nations are also actively exploring our solar system via robotic craft, including the United Arab Emirates, which recently sent a probe to Mars for the first time. There are missions from the U.S., Europe, and Japan — both planned and underway — to visit asteroids and comets, and other missions will explore the outer planets and their moons. The International Space Station’s toilet may not look glamorous, but it’s a big improvement from the early Michael E. Bakich is a contributing editor days of space exploration. NASA of Astronomy. 24 ASTRONOMY • NOVEMBER 2022

Totality touches THE MOON WE CAN PROBABLY CLASSIFY an It’s worth getting ABOVE: During totality, the eclipsed Moon takes on up early Nov. 8 to see red or orange hues. Each eclipse is a little different; eclipse of the Moon as the least stressful of the Moon slide into this stunning photo was captured from El Sauce astronomical events: Total lunar eclipses Observatory in Chile in May 2022 using a are both easy and fun to watch. And one Earth’s shadow. 61-megapixel QHY600 camera and Skywatcher arrives for the continental U.S. in the early 3-inch (80 millimeters) telescope. MATT DIETERICH morning hours of Tuesday, Nov. 8. BY MICHAEL E. BAKICH 3:02:17 A.M. (all times are EST). The par- Observers throughout the country slides along, ultimately turning our satel- tial eclipse, which is when the Moon first will see at least part of the event, but lite a deep orange-red. touches Earth’s umbra (its darker, inner favored locations lie to the west. The next shadow), begins at 4:09:12 A.M. Totality total lunar eclipse visible from the U.S. What time and where? starts at 5:16:39 A.M., with greatest eclipse won’t be until March 14, 2025. at 5:59:09 A.M. Totality ends at 6:41:37 A.M. The eclipse begins when the Moon The Nov. 8 eclipse lasts nearly six enters Earth’s penumbra, our planet’s After totality, things play out in hours, requires no equipment to see, and lighter, outer shadow. That happens at reverse. The partial phase ends at you can stare at it all you want. You won’t 7:49:03 A.M. and the Moon exits the pen- even need a filter — what you’re looking umbra, marking the end of the eclipse, at at is Earth’s shadow moving across the 8:56:08 A.M. Just slightly less than 3 hours Moon’s surface. Any observer on our 40 minutes elapses from the start of the planet’s nightside with a clear sky will see partial phase until its end. What’s more the dramatic progression as the shadow WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 25

ABOVE: A partially eclipsed Super Moon hangs in the starry sky near Marion, Iowa, May 15, shadow’s depth throughout totality, the 2022. This 2.5-second exposure was captured 21 minutes before maximum eclipse. GREGG ALLISS appearance of its face will change signifi- cantly as the eclipse progresses. RIGHT: This unique shot shows multiple phases of the May 2022 lunar eclipse, as seen from Mina de São Domingos in Alentejo, Portugal. It comprises three separate photographs: the Our atmosphere also plays a big part in orange-hued eclipsed Moon, the illuminated portion of the Moon before full eclipse, and how the Moon appears. The air around us the lunar terminator in detail. SÉRGIO CONCEIÇÃO contains water droplets, dust, pollen, and ash. All these components reduce the air’s important, totality lasts a worthy 1 hour Rate the darkness transparency. Storms and large amounts 25 minutes. The longest possible duration of clouds along the limb of our planet of totality during a lunar eclipse is 1 hour The Moon looks different from one total- (from the Moon’s point of view) can make 46.6 minutes. So, the one on Nov. 8 stacks ity to the next because it takes different the lunar surface appear even darker. up pretty well. paths through Earth’s shadow. Sometimes it passes close to the center and sometimes One of the coolest effects dur- The entire eclipse will be visible to it crosses the outskirts. The more central ing a total lunar eclipse is much of the world, excluding Africa and the path, the darker the Moon’s surface that the Moon doesn’t much of Europe. Northwestern parts of will get, especially around mid-eclipse. just darken — it also South America will see some totality, but So, when totality arrives, be sure to look changes color. This the finest views come in Asia, Australia, for the difference in brightness between happens because our and North America. In the continental the northern and southern edges. atmosphere bends a U.S., everyone with a clear sky will expe- bit of sunlight into the rience at least part of totality, and those Totality on Nov. 8 doesn’t reach the shadow and onto the who position themselves as far west as longest possible duration, because only Moon’s surface. And possible will have the best views. The the Moon’s southern edge touches the because the air around “worst” U.S. views will come in eastern center of our planet’s umbra. You’ll easily Maine, and even there, observers will see that the Moon’s southern half looks us scatters blue light the most witness more than an hour of totality. darker than its northern half. Because (which is the reason a clear daytime sky the Moon crosses a large range of the is blue), the light that falls on the Moon is redder than normal sunlight. Since lunar eclipses last on the order of hours, many observers use some of the time during totality to estimate how dark the event is. They do this using a scale developed in 1921 by French astronomer André-Louis Danjon. How you make this observation doesn’t matter. You can use BELOW: This composite shows the progression of phases during the brief May 26, 2021, lunar eclipse. The series was shot near Washpen Falls in New Zealand in dry, cold conditions. BEN (CC BY-ND 2.0) BOTTOM: The Danjon scale, created by André-Louis Danjon, allows observers to estimate the darkness of any given lunar totality. Take a look at the Moon during mid-totality. Which number on the scale does it match best? ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY THE DANJON SCALE 0 1 2 3 4 Very dark, nearly Dark eclipse with Rust-colored Moon Brick red Moon, Copper- or orange- invisible Moon a gray- or brown- with a darker center which may have a colored eclipse, possibly and lighter outer edge colored Moon yellow edge with a bluish rim 26 ASTRONOMY • NOVEMBER 202 2

your naked eyes, binoculars, or a tele- TIMING THE ECLIPSE N scope. Just be sure to make you estimate near the middle of totality. Partial (umbral) Greatest eclipse eclipse ends 5:59:09 A.M. EST Danjon used the letter L for luminos- 7:49:03 A.M. EST ity, the Moon’s brightness. For an eclipse where L = 0, the Moon nearly disappears Penumbral Partial (umbral) at mid-totality. If L = 1, you’ll see the eclipse ends eclipse begins Moon, which will appear gray or brown, but details on its surface will be hard to 8:56:08 A.M. EST 4:09:12 A.M. EST identify. When L = 2, details are visible and our satellite takes on a deep red or E ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY, AFTER FRED ESPENAK, WWW.ECLIPSEWISE.COM rust color. L = 3 occurs when the Moon is a lighter shade of red. Also, you might Total eclipse ends notice that Earth’s shadow has a brighter 6:41:37 A.M. EST edge, which may even look yellow. Finally, the brightest eclipses are when Umbra L = 4. During these, the Moon’s surface appears orange or copper and the shad- Penumbral magnitude 2.42 Total eclipse begins Penumbral ow’s edge might look blue. Many amateur 5:16:39 A.M. EST eclipse begins astronomers hope for an eclipse that rates a low Danjon number because of how Penumbra 3:02:17 A.M. EST dramatically different the sky looks at totality from when the event begins. Penumbral radius 1.22° Umbral magnitude 1.36 Umbral radius 0.68° The starry sky On Nov. 19, 2021, a partial (97 percent) lunar eclipse eclipse poses no danger to your eyes. So, occurred with the Moon near the Pleiades in Taurus. you won’t need a filter and you can even This eclipse takes place in fall, so the Once again, our satellite will appear near this magnify the sight with binoculars or a traditional fall constellations lie opposite sparkling star cluster during an eclipse, with the telescope without worry. the Sun, surrounding the Full Moon. On Moon passing completely through Earth’s shadow the morning of Nov. 8, the Moon will be this time. ALAN DYER Because this event occurs in the early in Aries the Ram. Look for magnitude morning on a Tuesday, people who work 2.0 Hamal (Alpha [α] Arietis) a bit more No harm in looking or go to school that day might skip it. than 12° northwest (to the upper right) of Still, it may be fun to wake up and share the Moon. The nearest 1st-magnitude star With an annular solar eclipse coming a few minutes of totality with your fam- to the Moon is magnitude 0.9 Aldebaran to the U.S. in 2023, followed six months ily. Many astronomy clubs are already (Alpha Tauri), which lies 25° due east. later by a total solar eclipse, people pro- planning viewing parties for their mem- moting those events are stressing safety bers. Whether planetariums and science Observing the Pleiades (M45) in viewing, and justifiably so. But while centers follow suit will likely depend on throughout the first half of the eclipse adequate eye protection is a legitimate the state of the COVID-19 pandemic and will provide a nice diversion for observ- concern during solar eclipses, a lunar any local restrictions. ers. The sky’s brightest star cluster lies 15° northeast of the Moon. Take a look at Events like this are easy to observe it every five minutes or so, starting when and enjoy. You don’t need binoculars or a the partial eclipse begins. Note how the telescope, although either will enhance Pleiades’ visibility changes as more and your view. You don’t need to travel to a more of the lunar surface plunges into dark site, though if your neighborhood is darkness. Although the stars will become light-polluted, getting out of the city will easier to see with just your eyes, binocu- let you see many more stars during total- lars will provide a different (and probably ity. And you don’t even have to watch the more pronounced) perspective. whole eclipse. Many people bail once totality is over. However and wherever Both Mars and Jupiter will blaze you watch, get comfortable, stay warm, nicely on either side of the Moon as the and enjoy the sublime celestial geometry eclipse begins. The Red Planet, shining of a total lunar eclipse. Good luck! at magnitude –1.4, is 40° to the east- northeast, and the king of planets, Jove, Michael E. Bakich is a contributing still near its greatest brilliancy for the editor of Astronomy who will be watching year at magnitude –2.8, lies 46° west- this lunar eclipse from his home in Tucson, southwest of Luna. Unfortunately, the Arizona. farther east you are located, the more likely it is that Jupiter will have set. WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 27

SKY THIS MONTH Visible to the naked eye Visible with binoculars THE SOLAR SYSTEM’S CHANGING LANDSCAPE AS IT APPEARS IN EARTH’S SKY. Visible with a telescope BY MARTIN RATCLIFFE AND ALISTER LING Jupiter and Saturn Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, (the brightest two is magnitude 8.5 — an easy tar- points in this image, get for small telescopes. You’ll respectively) are find it north of Saturn Nov. 8/9 two of fall’s best and 24/25, and due south evening treats. Nov. 16. Tethys, Dione, and Rhea, all magnitude 10, orbit ALAN DYER closer and change relative loca- tions from night to night. NOVEMBER 2022 Iapetus normally resides far Giants shine at sunset east or west of Saturn, often out- side a field of view containing An outer-planet planet sets about 10:30 P.M. local views show the rings well, the planet. It can be hard to bonanza is in store time in late November. spanning 38\". Their apparent find, but in mid-November, it’s this month. Saturn never fails to tilt to our line of sight is 15°, lined up nicely with Saturn and deliver and is visible in the early Saturn glows at magnitude with their northern face sunlit; visible in the same field of view. evening. Jupiter offers up stun- 0.6 and dims 0.1 magnitude they’ll appear edge-on by 2025. ning views, along with a nice during the month. Telescopic On Nov. 13, Iapetus passes series of repeating Europa and through superior conjunction on Ganymede transits. The distant Gaggle of giant planets the far side of its orbit, placing it giants Uranus and Neptune are just north of the disk. It stands easy to star-hop to for intrigu- Sadalmelik Saturn 12\" from the center of Saturn, or ing sights. And finally, there’s PEGASUS about 5\" from the northern limb Mars, high in Taurus after mid- of the planet. At 11th magnitude, night in the most favorable Hamal AQUARIUS Deneb it’s a challenging object, given apparition in years for Northern ARIES the brilliance of Saturn. Check Hemisphere observers. It’s clos- Uranus Jupiter Neptune Algedi the night before or the night ing in rapidly for an early Skat after, when Iapetus stands 46\" December opposition, yet is CAPRICORNUS northwest or 35\" northeast of the closest to Earth on the last day disk, respectively. On the 14th, of this month. CETUS PISCIS Dione shows the way to Iapetus The ringed planet Saturn Fomalhaut AUSTRINUS to its northwest, the fainter lies low (35°) in the southern moon within 10\" of its brighter sky and is best viewed soon Diphda sibling. As Iapetus moves farther after dark. As November opens, east, it fades to 12th magnitude Saturn stands 5° north of a First 10° as its darker hemisphere turns Quarter Moon, both located in earthward. eastern Capricornus the Sea Nov. 15, 1 hour after sunset Goat. A waxing crescent returns Looking southeast Look for Neptune about 6.5° to the same area Nov. 28. The west-southwest of Jupiter, due All four giant planets hang in the evening sky in November. While Jupiter and south of the Circlet of Pisces. Saturn are easy naked-eye objects, Uranus and Neptune require binoculars to You can spot the magnitude 7.7 spot. Mars will join in later in the month. ALL ILLUSTRATIONS: ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY planet with binoculars. It’s placed conveniently between two brighter 7th-magnitude stars all month, aiding its identi- fication, and remains visible until after midnight. The two stars are the easternmost pair of a parallelogram of four stars each about 1° apart, located 5° east-northeast of Phi (ϕ) Aquarii. Check the nightly prog- ress of Neptune within this grouping. The ice giant’s retro- grade path carries it from near 28 ASTRONOMY • NOVEMBER 202 2

RISING MOON I Highlights in the highlands THE GREAT RAYED CRATER Tycho is the Furnerius A and Stevinus A attention-getter near Full phase, and rightfully so. But two of its smaller cousins dominate the OBSERVING southeast limb. Because the impacts are young Petavius HIGHLIGHT — relatively speaking — their bright ejecta blankets and rays have not had time to darken MARS makes its closest under the weak but relentless sandblasting from Snellius particles blown on the solar wind. A approach to Earth Nov. 30, Any time during November’s first week, when it is 0.544 astronomical zoom in to separate the double source of these unit (50.6 million miles) away. white rays. Punching up the power also helps to Stevinus N tone down the glare. Stevinus A is brighter and A slightly smaller than Furnerius A, which lies closer to the limb. The duo straddles the modest 40-mile-wide crater Stevinus, Furnerius E which is barely noticeable under the the northeastern star to a point high Sun. Topographic features in the Can you spot these small craters amid almost due north of the south- lunar highlands are easier to spot under their bright ejecta? CONSOLIDATED LUNAR ATLAS/ western star by the end of a lower Sun, which occurred in the final November, when Neptune UA/LPL. INSET: NASA/GSFC/ASU slows just prior to next month’s week of last month. Shadows also abound on eyepieces have enough eye relief to let you stationary point. A telescope Nov. 9th, just before their long lunar night. The wear your shades. Alternatively, reduce the aper- reveals its dim bluish disk, pair of bright rays reappears on the 29th. ture by using a mask with a 3-inch hole, or tape spanning 2\". A bright gibbous There are a couple of ways to reduce the a piece of cardboard to cover half or more of the Moon lies 5° southwest of brightness of the Moon if you don’t have a filter. front of your scope — the shape doesn’t matter Neptune Nov. 3/4. Put on your sunglasses — most low-power that much. Jupiter is up all evening and is best viewed right after dark, when it is high in the southern METEOR WATCH I Chancy prospects sky in Pisces. On Nov. 4, a bright gibbous Moon stands 3° southeast of Jupiter. The planet Leonid meteor shower A WANING CRESCENT MOON shines at magnitude –2.8 and affects the annual Leonid meteor dips by 0.2 magnitude during Radiant shower, which peaks late on Nov. 17 the month. It halts its retro- LEO (catch the radiant rising early on Nov. 18). grade motion Nov. 24, then The shower is active from Nov. 6 to 30. resumes moving east. Regulus The bright Moon will render fainter members invisible, effectively dropping A telescopic view is one Denebola the expected zenithal hourly rate of 10 of the season’s highlights, with to 15 to low single digits. (Some predic- a wealth of detail visible on Arcturus HYDRA tions do anticipate a potential outburst the 47\"-wide disk. During BOÖTES VIRGO November, Jupiter shrinks Spica Nov. 19 — see “The Leonids promise to slightly to 44\" as the planet’s dazzle this year” on page 16.) distance from Earth increases. The brighter members are spectacu- lar and worth spending a few hours The belts straddling the equator 10° under a clear morning sky to catch. are obvious in any scope; fea- Many come with persistent trains, par- ticularly near dawn, when their closing tures such as subtle wisps LEONID METEORS Nov. 18, 1 hour before sunrise velocity is higher. Leo rises soon after of clouds and spots move Looking southeast midnight and the radiant is 70° high for noticeably in minutes, Active dates: Nov. 6–30 mid-northern latitudes in the hour thanks to Jupiter’s rapid Peak: Nov. 17 The Leonids, born from Comet before dawn. rotation. Watch for the Moon at peak: Waning crescent 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, peak late on Nov. 17. occasional appearance of Maximum rate at peak: Catch the best show early on the 18th. the Great Red Spot and 10 meteors/hour check out the wandering Galilean moons. nicely timed evening transits. the pair straddles the central shadow begins a transit shortly These moons regularly tran- As night falls on Nov. 1, Io and meridian. Io exits at 9:50 P.M. before Europa’s shadow exits. sit the face of Jupiter, casting its shadow are drifting in front EDT, followed by its shadow Ganymede’s shadow moves onto their accompanying shadows. of the planet, with the moon 53 minutes later. the disk at 8:22 P.M. EDT, taking November opens with a few leading. Around 9 P.M. EDT, On Nov. 2, Ganymede’s giant — Continued on page 38 WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 29

STAR DOME N _ HOW TO USE THIS MAP M82 k _ M81 This map portrays the sky as seen near 35° north latitude. Located NE inside the border are the cardinal directions and their intermediate a points. To find stars, hold the map ` overhead and orient it so one of the labels matches the direction LYNX _ you’re facing. The stars above Polaris the map’s horizon now match E M _ what’s in the sky. NCP CA The all-sky map shows URSA how the sky looks at: MINOR 10 P.M. November 1 ` Capella D R PA ` 8 P.M. November 15 e 7 P.M. November 30 LO b L A ` Planets are shown I CEPHEUS a at midmonth _c S d d M35 M37 ` Mars MM3368AU R I G A ¡ C N¡GCNG86C9884 d P _ S ` ` a M1 b Algol l a b AS +c b d c _ IO f EIA f P _ ¡ E L A C E RTA eb R S E A N D R O M E DA ` M33 a U S c Pleiades TR _ d ` TAU R U S / I ¡h ORION A ha _ N k Aldebaran MAP SYMBOLS ` M31 Open cluster GU Globular cluster Diffuse nebula L Planetary nebula Galaxy U STAR E M MAGNITUDES ARIES _ b _ ` Sirius _ +d 0.0 3.0 Uranus 1.0 4.0 ` 2.0 5.0 a d PEGASUS i PISCES a_ ¡ _ c a Mira _ Path of the a e Jupiter (ecliptic)A k Sun R I U S _ b Q UA a ERIDANUS d b CETUS o STAR COLORS _ FORNAX ` SGP NGC 253 A star’s color depends SE _ Fomalhaut on its surface temperature. _ PAIUS CS TI SR I N The hottest stars shine blue SCULPTOR •• Slightly cooler stars appear white a _ PHOENIX GRU • Intermediate stars (like the Sun) glow yellow ` • Lower-temperature stars appear orange ` • The coolest stars glow red • Fainter stars can’t excite our eyes’ color receptors, so they appear white unless you use optical aid to gather more light S BEGINNERS: WATCH A VIDEO ABOUT HOW TO READ A STAR CHART AT www.Astronomy.com/starchart.

NOVEMBER 2022 SAT. SUN. MON. TUES. WED. THURS. FRI. a HERCULES / M13 NW 1 2345 ILLUSTRATIONS BY ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY `i d c 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 c 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 d 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 DRAC 27 28 29 30 f Note: Moon phases in the calendar vary in size due to the distance b from Earth and are shown at 0h Universal Time. ¡ Vega + CALENDAR OF EVENTS _ r d CYGNUS ` 1 First Quarter Moon occurs at 2:37 A.M. EDT De The Moon passes 4° south of Saturn, 5 P.M. EDT b LY R A 3 The Moon passes 1.0° south of asteroid Juno, 4 A.M. EDT `a M57 4 The Moon passes 3° south of Neptune, 4 A.M. EDT _ _ VULPECULA The Moon passes 2° south of Jupiter, 4 P.M. EDT a 8 Full Moon occurs at 6:02 A.M. EST; total lunar eclipse c M27 W The Moon passes 0.7° north of Uranus, 8 A.M. EST ¡ Mercury is in superior conjunction, noon EST 9 Uranus is at opposition, 3 A.M. EST Enif M15 `_ DELPHINUS a Altair S A G I T TA ` _a b AQUILA c 11 The Moon passes 2° north of Mars, 9 A.M. EST 12 Asteroid Euterpe is at opposition, 11 A.M. EST EQUULEUS d _ 14 The Moon is at apogee (251,606 miles from Earth), 1:40 A.M. EST 16 Last Quarter Moon occurs at 8:27 A.M. EST _ h 17 Leonid meteor shower peaks 21 Asteroid Bamberga is at opposition, 1 P.M. EST e M11 23 New Moon occurs at 5:57 P.M. EST UM 24 Jupiter is stationary, 8 A.M. EST S Asteroid Pallas is stationary, 8 A.M. EST 25 The Moon is at perigee (225,450 miles from Earth), 8:31 P.M. EST U T 28 The Moon passes 4° south of Saturn, midnight EST 30 First Quarter Moon occurs at 9:37 A.M. EST N U The Moon passes 1.2° north of asteroid Juno, 7 P.M. EST Mars comes closest to Earth (50.6 million miles away), 9 P.M. EST ` R C O S C I PR _ A Saturn C a ` b NUS MICROSCOPIUM SW a US WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 31

PATHS OF THE PLANETS UMa LMi Asteroid Bamberga reaches C Vn BOÖ COM GEM opposition November 21 CrB Path of the SMuono(necliptic) Mars Uranus appears at Path of the CNC its best in November LEO SER Ceres Hebe ORI TAU CMi Asteroid Euterpe reaches opposition VIR SEX Jupiter H YA November 12 Sun LIB CRV CRT MON A total lunar eclipse LUP CMa occurs across most of CEN North America before Pallas dawn November 8 Dawn LEP SCL Moon phases PYX ERI FOR ANT PUP COL CAE PHE VEL Midnight 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 To locate the Moon in the sky, draw a line from the phase shown for the day straight up to the curved blue line. THE PLANETS Uranus THE PLANETS IN THE SKY IN THEIR ORBITS Opposition is November 8/9 These illustrations show the size, phase, Arrows show the inner and orientation of each planet and the two brightest dwarf planets at 0h UT for the dates planets’ monthly motions in the data table at bottom. South is at the top to match the view through a telescope. and dots depict the Jupiter Neptune outer planets’ positions Saturn at midmonth from high above their orbits. Venus Mars Mercury Ceres Ceres Mars Pluto MERCURY VENUS Earth Jupiter PLANETS Nov. 30 Nov. 15 –0.6 –3.9 Mercury Venus Date 4.9\" 9.8\" Superior conjunction Magnitude 95% 100% Angular size 1.369 1.702 is November 8 Illumination 0.452 0.725 Distance (AU) from Earth Distance (AU) from Sun 17h12.4m 15h43.7m Right ascension (2000.0) –24°57' –19°29' Declination (2000.0) 32 ASTRONOMY • NOVEMBER 2022

This map unfolds the entire night sky from sunset (at right) until sunrise (at left). Arrows NOVEMBER 2022 JULYand colored dots show motions and locations of solar system objects during the month. CYG LYR HER BOÖ Callisto 1 CrB 2 Europa 3 PEG VUL Comet 4 DEL SGE C/2022 E3 Io 5 (ZTF) Ganymede 6 Europa PSC EQU AQL SER OPH SER 7 Io Callisto Neptune SCT JUPITER’S Celestial equator MOONS 8 Jupiter 9 Ganymede VIR Dots display 10 positions of 11 Juno AQR Galilean satellites 12 Saturn at 10 P.M. EST on 13 Sun the date shown. 14 Vesta Pluto Venus South is at the 15 top to match the 16 PsA CAP view through a 17 telescope. 18 CRA Mercury LUP 19 SCO 20 GRU 21 22 TEL ARA 23 24 Early evening 25 26 43 2 1 27 28 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 29 30 Jupiter Saturn S WE N 10\" Uranus Neptune Pluto MARS CERES JUPITER SATURN URANUS NEPTUNE PLUTO Nov. 15 Nov. 15 Nov. 15 Nov. 15 Nov. 15 Nov. 15 Nov. 15 –1.5 8.7 –2.7 0.7 5.7 7.7 15.2 16.5\" 0.5\" 45.8\" 16.9\" 3.8\" 2.3\" 0.1\" 97% 97% 99% 100% 0.568 4.302 100% 100% 100% 1.504 2.824 4.952 9.859 18.693 29.405 35.070 2.550 9.847 19.677 29.914 34.646 5h31.7m 11h32.3m 23h57.3m 21h26.2m 2h56.0m 23h34.1m 19h54.4m 24°29' 12°38' –1°55' –16°26' 16°22' –4°07' –23°06'

WHEN TO SKY THIS MONTH — Continued from page 33 VIEW THE Gathering of moons larger. It lies more than PLANETS 1.7 billion miles from Earth. EVENING SKY Nov. 14, 11 P.M. EST S Mars continues its spectacu- Mars (east) W Enceladus Saturn lar run across Taurus, nearing Jupiter (southeast) next month’s opposition. On Nov. 1, it shines at magnitude Saturn (south) –1.2 about 17° north of Uranus (east) Neptune (southeast) Rhea Tethys Dione Betelgeuse. Mars rises soon after MIDNIGHT Iapetus 8 P.M. local time and stands near Mars (east) 30\" the horns of the Bull. It has just Jupiter (west) begun its retrograde path, mov- Saturn (west) On Nov. 14, Iapetus is one night past superior conjunction with Saturn. Use ing westward and meeting a Uranus (south) brighter Dione, which sits 10\" southeast of dimmer Iapetus, to find the way. gibbous Moon Nov. 10, when Neptune (west) Titan, not shown here, lies farther east. several minutes to appear. midnight. The ice giant reaches Mars shines with the same bril- MORNING SKY Europa’s shadow leaves the disk opposition early on the 9th. liance as Sirius. Do you think Mars (west) they look equally bright? Their Uranus (west) at 9:00 P.M. EDT. Ganymede’s Uranus makes a close color difference will affect your shadow spends nearly three appulse to a 7th-magnitude field impression. By the end of the hours crossing the cloud tops, star Nov. 18 and 19. Late on the month, Mars brightens to a visible most of the evening in 18th, the planet stands less than stunning magnitude –1.8. Mars near its best. It’s not the U.S. 1' due north of the star. The fol- On Nov. 1, Mars stands due as close to Earth as the previ- On Nov. 9 (note daylight lowing night, it is 2' due west of south around 3 A.M. local time. ous opposition, but is at a saving time ends Nov. 6), the star. Through a telescope By Nov. 30, it’s due south by much higher altitude after mid- Europa is on the disk at night- under good conditions, Uranus midnight and also rises nearly night, benefiting Northern fall on the East Coast and reveals a 4\"-wide disk. This two hours earlier than at the Hemisphere observers. Through Ganymede begins to transit at distant world looks tiny from beginning of the month. a telescope, Mars spans 15\" on 7:15 P.M. EST. Europa’s shadow Earth, yet it is nearly five times Now is the time to catch Nov. 1 and grows to 17\" by transit starts at 8:06 P.M. EST and the moon exits the disk 30 minutes later. Ganymede COMET SEARCH I Preparing for launch treks across Jupiter together with Europa’s shadow, the MY MIND IS RACING in anticipa- Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) moon exiting at 10:03 P.M. EST, tion of seeing unaided a comet while the shadow transit ends scoot under Polaris and above a ¡ N Alphecca 32 minutes later. The sequence sweeping auroral curtain at the E CORONA repeats Nov. 16/17 with the end of January. Discovered in BOREALIS a events spaced farther apart, March 2022 by the Zwicky Transient and again Nov. 23/24. Facility, Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is b expected to peak at 5th magnitude No transits involving in February. 30 Nov. 1 Callisto occur for the rest of 2022. Callisto appears due north The Moon leaves the evening 25 5 of Jupiter the morning of Nov. 2 sky midmonth, when you can head and early in the evening on out for a direct look. Now glowing SERPENS 20 15 10 Nov. 18, and due south Nov. 27. around 10th magnitude, ZTF will CAPUT need a 6-inch scope above 100x to Path of Comet ZTF Uranus in southern Aries is deliver some structure. The south an easy binocular target at mag- nitude 5.7. It lies about 7° north- flank should be well defined, thanks 1° northeast of Mu (μ) Ceti. North to the solar wind pushing ejected of Mu, look for 5th-magnitude dust outward. A short fan spreads Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is now 10th magnitude, in line with the fainter Sigma (σ) Arietis, then Rho (ρ) northward, ending sharply to the objects in the Messier catalog. It doesn’t appear to move much this month, Arietis 3° farther along the west, where imagers may pick up a but just wait until January — then it will truly fly. same line. Uranus’ bluish disk spends the month roughly mid- blue ion tail. The intensifying radia- way between these two stars. It’s visible all night and is highest in tion from the Sun should trigger a green halo from diatomic carbon as November comes to a close. the sky in the hour before local ZTF appears to be executing a slow hairpin turn just left (east) of Corona Borealis. Its true path is a parabola, like all dirty snowballs originating at the edge of the Oort Cloud. By chance this month, Earth’s motion is briefly parallel to the comet’s, making it appear to hover in one area. When we pass under- neath it in January, ZTF will cross half the sky in a few nights! 34 ASTRONOMY

LOCATING ASTEROIDS I In deep water Near and far SPYING THE SECOND-LARGEST asteroid in our solar system won’t be quite as easy as it was last month. Plying the mytho- Betelgeuse Mars logical border waters of Aquarius and Capricornus, 4 Vesta drifts halfway between Saturn and the southern beacon Fomalhaut in ORION Aldebaran PERSEUS Piscis Austrinus. Fortunately, our target remains reasonably bright at magnitude 7.6 — it’s just a little isolated for the star-hopping Pleiades CASSIOPEIA crew, who will need to execute some well-planned tacks. ANDROMEDA TAU R U S Vesta hits its high point in the south, called culmination, Uranus around 8 P.M. local time. Don’t wait to let it sail down behind trees and buildings. Avoid the first and last few days of the month, Menkar Moon when the glare from the nearby Moon interferes. With an albedo ARIES Hamal of 0.38, Vesta’s reflected sunlight outshines most of the back- ground stars here. You can easily see it shift against them from CETUS the 4th to the 5th, the 15th to the 17th, and the 27th to the 28th. Heinrich Olbers first detected Vesta’s movement in 1807, making it the 4th asteroid to be discovered. But back then, it was categorized as a planet. 10° Floating along Nov. 8, 5:16 A.M. EST f N Looking west Deneb As totality begins during this month’s lunar eclipse, magnitude 5.7 Uranus Algedi a Saturn sits 1.9° east of the lunar limb — within the field of view of binoculars. g Nov. 30. Early in the month, its of Mars for other nearby fea- 30 A Q UA R I U S ¡ phase is a noticeable 94 percent; tures and enjoy becoming famil- 25 it reaches 99 percent three weeks iar with them as we approach Path of Vesta CAPRICORNUS later. Mars comes closest to next month’s opposition. M30 c Earth the night of Nov. 30, when E 20 it is 50.6 million miles away. Mercury passes through 15 superior conjunction with the 10 Now that you’ve spent Sun Nov. 8. Venus is just over a p 5 months perfecting your observ- week past superior conjunction NGC 7293 Nov. 1 ing techniques, it’s time to take as November opens and, like advantage. Both polar regions Mercury, remains too close to 2° are on view this month as the the Sun for observation. planet’s tilt with respect to Earth Vesta slides steadily northeast against the background stars in reaches 0° on Nov. 8. The Red The second total lunar November. Saturn is shown on Nov. 15; it won’t shift much all month. Planet’s rotation period is eclipse of the year takes place some 40 minutes longer than early on Nov. 8 in the U.S. Like begins at 5:16 A.M. EST. The view of binoculars. For observ- Earth’s, so if you observe at the May’s eclipse, it lasts 85 min- Midwest and western half of the ers in northwestern Canada, same time each night, Mars utes, but this time occurs at the country enjoy most of totality in Alaska, and eastern Asia, appears to rotate backward by ascending node of the lunar darkness. Mid-totality occurs at Uranus is occulted by the Moon about 10°. You can adjust your orbit, crossing the ecliptic from 5:59 A.M. EST. The Pleiades around the end of the partial observing time to catch the fea- south to north. Parts of Europe, (M45) sparkle above the phase. Watch for any other faint tures listed here. In the hours the Middle East, Asia, and eclipsed Moon, while Orion stars that are occulted during around local midnight, the fol- Australia also get varying views. stands high in the southwest. the eclipse and look out for lowing features are facing Earth On the East Coast, the Moon early Leonid meteors as well. (for the Midwest): Nov. 1 – Mare In the U.S., the eclipsed sets soon after the end of totality For more details about the Sirenum; Nov. 10 – Olympus Moon is setting across the east- (which occurs at 6:41 A.M. EST). eclipse, see “Totality touches Mons and the Tharsis Ridge; ern seaboard; the eastern half of The remaining stages proceed the Moon” on page 25. Nov. 17 – Tharsis Ridge and the country sees morning twi- in brightening twilight in the Valles Marineris; Nov. 23 – light affecting the later stages of Midwest; the partial phase ends Martin Ratcliffe is a Valles Marineris to Sinus totality. Following the faintly at 7:49 A.M. EST. planetarium professional with Meridiani; Nov. 30 – Syrtis visible penumbral stage, the Evans & Sutherland and enjoys Major and Hellas. Check a map dark umbra appears at 4:09 A.M. The eclipse occurs near the observing from Salt Lake City. EST. It takes an hour for the location of Uranus in Aries. At Alister Ling, who lives in Moon to reach totality, which the onset of totality, Uranus Edmonton, Alberta, is a longtime stands 1.9° east of the lunar watcher of the skies. GET DAILY UPDATES ON YOUR NIGHT SKY AT limb, easily within the field of www.Astronomy.com/skythisweek. WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 35

RISING GREAT SCIENTIFIC IDEAS can come STARS IN from anywhere and anyone, no matter their background or age. But it’s no exag- geration to say that science is constantly nourished by young researchers bring- ing new ways of thinking and a burst of productivity to the first stages of their careers. If you want to see where astron- omy is headed, you can’t do better than seek out researchers in their early years and find out what’s on their minds. In that spirit, for the first time in this magazine’s history, Astronomy is high- lighting 25 researchers who, early in their careers, have already distinguished themselves and made an impact. This list is not a ranking. Rather, it is a col- lection of rising stars whose names you should know, researchers and engineers who are shaping the future of astronomy and spaceflight. They investigate topics ranging from supermassive black holes to the invisible particles that comprise dark matter, from the chemicals that populate alien atmo- spheres to the satellites that populate our own skies. They ask big questions about the early universe, modern society, and everything in between. And what are the answers to those questions? For decades to come, we’ll be paying attention to them to find out. ASTRONOMY

GOPI MOHLABENGCHALKBOARD: LES CUNLIFFE/DREAMSTIME. ALL ICONS: ALEKSEY VANIN/DREAMSTIME, UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED YVETTE CENDES PRESIDENT’S POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM SEARCHING FOR THE INVISIBLE PORTRAIT: FLORIS LOOIJESTEIJN. ICON: KUROKSTA/DREAMSTIMERADIO-WAVE WRANGLER THE MYSTERY OF dark matter, the enigmatic substance WHEN YVETTE CENDES saw the 1997 film adaptation that makes up 27 percent of the universe, has plagued of Carl Sagan’s novel Contact, she initially wanted to be an astronomers for decades. Despite ample evidence across the astronomer like protagonist Ellie Arroway, searching for signs universe hinting at its presence, dark matter has never been of extraterrestrial intelligence. “But [then] I decided I wanted seen directly. “We simply don’t know what it is,” says Gopi to work on things you can actually see,” she says. “No offense Mohlabeng, a theoretical particle physicist at the University to the aliens, but until they come calling, you need to have a of California, Irvine. Mohlabeng, 33, is trying to change bit of faith. As it turns out, I’m too impatient for that.” that by coming up with new ideas for what dark matter might look like and how it could finally be detected. Today, Cendes, 36, is a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard- Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, His physics journey started with watching the Honey, I Massachusetts. There, she studies transient radio signals like Shrunk the Kids movie series at a young age. That sparked tidal disruption events (TDEs), the emission of light and radia- an initial interest in becoming an inventor, which turned tion that accompanies a star as it approaches and gets devoured into a passion for physics in high school. He went on to by a supermassive black hole. To Cendes’ delight, TDEs have study physics and astrophysics as an undergraduate and proven more plentiful than aliens. earned his doctorate from the University of Kansas in 2017. “She has a real passion for radio astronomy that comes Today, Mohlabeng creates theoretical models for dark through in all of her work,” says Kate Alexander, a radio matter particles. He also suggests ways these particles could astronomer at Northwestern University and a collaborator of be detected with existing and future experiments like the Cendes’. “She’s made it a personal mission, it seems, to apply Large Hadron Collider, James Webb Space Telescope, or for telescope time on every radio telescope she possibly can.” the Square Kilometer Array — a radio telescope under con- struction in Mohlabeng’s home country of South Africa Cendes also has little patience for astronomical myths. If that’s set to become the world’s largest facility of its kind. you’re on Reddit, you’ve likely seen her as user Andromeda321, talking about space and debunking misconceptions. “We all “I think that the next five to 10 years is going to be a have our pet peeves. Mine’s misinformation on the internet golden age for particle physics,” Mohlabeng says. “We’re about astronomy,” Cendes says. going to have a lot of data for theorists like me to work on.” Her latest project focuses on a collection of TDEs detected a When he’s not at work solving the mysteries of dark few years ago in X-ray, gamma-ray, and optical observations. matter, Mohlabeng likes to spend time inspiring the next At the time, they weren’t emitting radio signals — but as of generation of scientists through outreach, particularly with late, almost 40 percent are, and astronomers don’t know why. underrepresented groups and young students of color. Cendes’ best guess is that something is changing in the accre- tion disk of material around the supermassive black hole that “Anyone can be a physicist,” Mohlabeng said. “It’s all alters the emission. “Nobody was really expecting this,” she about having a passion for physics and trying to understand says. “It’s wild.” —ANNA FUNK as much as you can.” — MARA JOHNSON-GROH

COLE JOHNSTON NORA EISNER Survey Satellite (TESS). She is a Flatiron Research Fellow at the Center EXOPLANET HUNTER for Computational Astrophysics in New York City, where she manages BEFORE NORA EISNER’S FAMILY Planet Hunters TESS, a citizen science moved to Cambridge, U.K., when she project she established in 2018 as her was 8, she grew up in Switzerland, where Ph.D. project at the University of she first glimpsed the Moon through a Oxford. small telescope. “I just remember that so clearly,” says Eisner. She soon decided Planet Hunters consists of nearly she wanted to become an astronaut. “I 35,000 volunteers around the world quickly dropped that idea when I real- who scan TESS data for signs of exo- ized you actually have to go into space, planets beyond our solar system. Since which sounds quite scary.” the satellite’s launch in 2018, TESS has surveyed fixed portions of the sky in Eisner, 28, instead explores the gal- 27-day increments, measuring the axy safely from her desk using data brightness of nearby stars in a given from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet zone every two minutes. Scientists have programmed JEDIDAH ISLER program. Along the way, she Isler’s colleagues are quick founded the nonprofit STEM to laud both her professional MAKING ASTRONOMY ACCESSIBLE en Route to Change (SeRCH) accomplishments and her per- Foundation, aimed at using sonal character. “Equity, jus- THESE DAYS, JEDIDAH She earned her bachelor’s science to advance social jus- PORTRAIT: MARC HUNTER. ICON: SEAMARTINI/DREAMSTIME tice, and inclusion seem to be Isler doesn’t have much time degree from Norfolk State tice issues. She’s also the cre- interwoven into the fabric of to research blazars — super- University in Virginia, and a ator and host of SeRCH’s who she is,” says Arlene massive black holes devouring master’s from Fisk University video series On the Vanguard: Modeste Knowles, TEAM-UP material in distant galaxies in Nashville, Tennessee, Conversations With Women of Diversity Task Force project — though she’s still interested Color in STEM, and has served manager. “I know that the in how they produce their jets. before heading to Yale work that she is doing [at Instead, as the White House University for her doctorate. on the American Institute of OSTP] will have far-reaching, Office of Science and In 2014, Isler became the first Physics’ Task Force to Elevate long-lasting outcomes.” Technology Policy’s (OSTP) African American woman to the Representation of African principal assistant director for earn a Ph.D. in astrophysics Americans in Undergraduate Isler has also done “a lot science and society, she is from Yale. She then went on Physics & Astronomy of really amazing work” in working full-time on advanc- to Dartmouth College in (TEAM-UP) to increase astrophysics, says astrophysi- ing equity. “I think one of the Hanover, New Hampshire, African American representa- cist Daryl Haggard at McGill biggest problems we have yet to start her own research tion in undergraduate physics University, “trying to under- to solve is how to truly make and astronomy programs. stand how the light coming sure that the science and tech- from [blazar] systems can nology ecosystem is open, vary in time, which can tell welcoming, and accessible to us about how black holes eject all,” Isler, 40, says. material, and also how they emit light.” Like many others, Isler’s interest in astronomy started Despite all her accomplish- as a young girl looking up at ments, Isler remains humble. the night sky. “I always found “You know, I just love astron- it to be so magnificent,” she omy and astrophysics,” she says. “It made me feel full of says. “It’s been such a passport wonder, and a profound sense in my life to opportunities of connection to the universe, that I may not have otherwise the people on the planet, and had. And so it’s been a great all the generations of civiliza- privilege to be a part of the tions that have looked up at a community. I hope that similar sky.” through my work, I can help contribute to make it even better.” — ANNA FUNK 38 ASTRONOMY • NOVEMBER 2022

computers to flag pos- to become co-authors observations are biased toward finding large planets with short orbital periods. sible “transit events,” on published papers. “If we want to address questions like how common are Earth-like planets, we need or dips in a star’s Her former Ph.D. to find those tiny planets on 365-day orbits,” Eisner says. “That’s a really dif- brightness that could advisor, astronomer ficult thing to do.” signify an exoplanet Chris Lintott of the But Eisner believes Planet Hunters TESS, with improved algorithms, will be crossing between the University of Oxford, up to the task. She is currently searching for planets with long orbital periods that star and the satellite. TESS monitors stars for tiny dips in says Eisner also excels circle older stars, which may give insight But the algorithms brightness that could be caused by at the tricky task of into the future of our own solar system. miss some transits planets passing in front of them. managing thousands “I have no idea what Nora’s going to NORA EISNER, STAR ADAPTED FROM NASA IMAGE do next,” says Lintott. “It’s going to be fascinating to watch her get to grips and other anomalies of Planet Hunters vol- with the data that’s coming our way.” in the data. Planet unteers. “She’s an — RENA KINGERY Hunters’ citizen scientists double-check excellent communicator,” says Lintott, the data to search for overlooked events. citing the accessible, community-driven Participants have identified 155 exo- video series Eisner created called Planet planet candidates so far and a host of Hunters Coffee Chats, which expanded other stellar phenomena using TESS volunteer involvement. data. And Eisner delights in inviting vol- Even with intelligent machines unteers who helped identify a candidate and discerning eyes, Eisner says the KENNETH WONG then perhaps our entire prevailing cosmo- logical theory is wrong. COSMIC LENSMAKER H0LiCOW, which stands for H0 Lenses WHAT FASCINATED KENNETH CHASE WESTWOOD in COSMOGRAIL’s Wellspring, emerged Wong about astronomy as an under- as an important independent check. The graduate was that despite its grand scale, A gravitational lens bends light team looks for a lensed object that changes “physics is the same on Earth as it is out around it from a background brightness over short timescales, like a there. So a lot of the principles you learn quasar in this Hubble picture. quasar gobbling up matter from its sur- in the classroom, you apply them, and Multiple images of the quasar roundings. Since the light in each image they work on large scales also.” appear, the light from each having formed by the gravitational lens takes a followed a different path. NASA, ESA, S.H. different path, any changes in brightness Today, Wong, 36, exploits one such appear in each image at a slightly different principle on the largest possible scale: Just SUYU (MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR ASTROPHYSICS, TECHNICAL time. By taking into account the delay, the as a lens can bring to a point light coming UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH, AND ACADEMIA SINICA INSTITUTE OF distribution of mass in the lens, and the from across a classroom, the gravitational ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS), AND K.C. WONG (UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO’S distance to the lensed object, H0LiCOW pull of a galaxy cluster can focus light KAVLI INSTITUTE FOR THE PHYSICS AND MATHEMATICS OF THE UNIVERSE) researchers can determine H0. across billions of light-years, producing multiple images of a single distant object found that H0 is significantly higher, Wong began working on H0LiCOW on the sky. By using these cosmic gravita- between 71.5 and 75 km/s/Mpc. “This with its founder Sherry Suyu in Taipei, tional lenses to measure how quickly the actually points to something going on,” Taiwan, at Academia Sinica as a postdoc universe is expanding, Wong and his col- says Wong. If their methods are sound, leagues at the H0LiCOW collaboration in 2013; he’s since moved to the are working on one of the most intrigu- National Astronomical ing mysteries in cosmology. Observatory of Japan in Tokyo. In 2020, the team The heart of the problem is a number published their analysis of known as the Hubble constant (H0), a six lensed quasars. Wong measure of the universe’s rate of expan- led the modeling of two sion. Thanks to the European Space of the six lenses and was Agency’s Planck satellite, which observed the study’s first author. the cosmic microwave background Their results? They found radiation left by the Big Bang, scientists H0 = 73.3 km/s/Mpc, in line know that under prevailing cosmological theory, H0 = 67.4 kilometers per second with the higher number, which per megaparsec. challenges our current cosmological theo- ries. There are enough independent mea- But in 2016, a different team studying surements now, including H0LiCOW, that type I supernovae in distant galaxies Wong says, “I think the tension is real. There’s something in cosmology that we don’t quite understand yet.” — MARK ZASTROW WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 39

CIARA MCGRATH boosters to Mars and the Moon.PORTRAIT: ROSS BEESLEY. ICON: KUROKSTA/DREAMSTIME But McGrath is looking at novel, CUBESAT INNOVATOR more efficient systems that CubeSats could use to propel them- CUBESATS ARE SMALL satellites, selves to their destinations, like usually no larger than a shoebox and solar sails and electric propulsion. intended to operate in low-Earth orbit. But Ciara McGrath, 31, and her team at It’s the type of challenge that she the University of Manchester, U.K., are relishes. “Before going to university, designing CubeSats that could travel to I thought I would become a scien- more distant destinations. tist,” says McGrath. “Last minute, my dad convinced me to go into SURROUND, a collaboration with engineering because ‘[engineers] the European Space Agency and the are the ones that solve problems.’ ” Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies, She believes he was right. could be one of the most ambitious CubeSat missions ever. It will place a SURROUND has become a constellation of six crafts into orbit point of pride for McGrath. Not around the Sun, including at Lagrange only is she overseeing the engineers points 900,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth, and in the University of Manchester’s farther. This fleet will be able to identify solar storms, track Space Systems Research Group, she them in three dimensions as they traverse the inner solar sys- also aims to reduce the environmental impact of satellites. tem, and provide early warning if one such storm is headed for CubeSats are cheaper than larger satellites and require less Earth. energy to produce. They can also fall out of orbit and burn up quickly, rather than contributing to the increasing space junk It’s McGrath’s job to figure out how to get the tiny satellites problem. in place. So far, only a few CubeSats have ventured beyond the “Operating in space is changing quite significantly,” says confines of Earth orbit, hitching a ride on much larger rocket McGrath. “We are doing research to balance the good and bad.” — SAMANTHA HILL VIVEK VIJAYAKUMAR following Vijayakumar’s of researchers at the school career ever since. Sollosy developing data tools to STELLAR CHEMIST was impressed both by the analyze compact objects like work Vijayakumar was doing neutron stars, white dwarfs, AFTER WATCHING HIS VIVEK VIJAYAKUMAR and his motivation to teach and black holes. In the future, first total lunar eclipse at the others about it. he’s most excited about diving age of 8, Vivek Vijayakumar’s distant stars. He also received into spectroscopy, using light fondness for the night sky an award for a science project “Besides being a young to unlock physical properties quickly grew into a love for studying the expansion of person who was really of stars, such as their chemical amateur astronomy and an planetary nebulae. Doug passionately engaged in makeup, temperature, density, obsession for the science Sollosy, founder of the expanding his own work and luminosity. behind it. He took his first Curiosity Peak Observatory in astrophysics and astron- college astronomy course in in Julian, California, has been omy, he was also interested Additionally, Vijayakumar middle school. Right away, in outreach and sharing what is interested in the material “I began wondering how he had learned with the pub- that lies between the stars: I could contribute to our lic,” says Sollosy. “He would “There’s still so much we understanding of celestial bring his telescope to our don’t know about the compo- phenomena,” he says. events and not just show sition of the interstellar people the stars; he would medium,” he says. By the time he began take the time to explain what high school in San Marcos, they were seeing.” While he’s not certain California, Vijayakumar had what his future will hold, he already authored a number of Today, as a 19-year-old knows that both the skies and research papers — including sophomore at Princeton academia will be the most the one he’s most proud of, in University, Vijayakumar prominent parts of it. But which he used data analysis to is driven to expand his affin- regardless of the scientific study the exoplanets that orbit ity for the night sky into a path he pursues, you can be greater understanding of its sure that he’ll be ready to tell makeup. He’s part of a team us all about it. —SARA NOVAK 40 ASTRONOMY • NOVEMBER 2022

DAVID MARTIN CRICKETER AND PLANET CATCHER AUSTRALIAN ASTRONOMER DAVID MARTIN didn’t spend his childhood staring through a telescope, but rather PORTRAIT: DAVID MARTIN. ICON: KUROKSTA/DREAMSTIME with a cricket bat in his hand. His dreams of going pro didn’t ADRIAN SANCHEZ GONZALEZ/MONTANA STATE UNIVERSITY pan out; instead, the 32-year-old is now a NASA Sagan Fellow at Ohio State, where he works to sniff out the secrets of exo- planets in some of the universe’s most extreme environments. Martin’s first taste of astronomy was a deep dive into the mathematics of two- and three-body systems at the University of Geneva. After graduating in 2012, he set off to Switzerland to complete his Ph.D. — and learn how to play ice hockey. Martin’s thesis was on transit timing variations, the small differences in timing used to calculate the sizes of exoplanets MALLORY MOLINA that pass in front of their host stars. Not one to settle for some- GATHERING BLACK HOLE SEEDS thing easy, Martin opted to study circumbinary systems, where exoplanets orbit more than one body, often two stars. “They were really cool because they were this really extreme example of transit timing variations,” he says. ASTROPHYSICIST for many junior students in MALLORY MOLINA, the department,” says Mike Spotting circumbi- 32, is on the trail of black Eracleous, Molina’s Ph.D. hole seeds. To that end, they advisor at Penn State, where nary planets was developed a new observa- Molina graduated in 2019. tional technique that uncov- “[They] stood out ... for pas- both an observa- ered what are “likely some sionately advocating for of the lowest-mass black astronomers from underrep- tional challenge and holes found in dwarf galax- resented groups and for ies,” they say. promoting many causes that a fascinating theo- benefit graduate students and This population can pro- other junior astronomers.” retical pursuit — vide clues to how today’s supermassive black holes got Molina is now an Eccles much less is known their start. Astronomers Postdoctoral Fellow at the believe such black holes may University of Utah in Salt about their formation have grown from “seeds” — Lake City, and starts an but they aren’t sure how big assistant professorship at and evolution than these seeds were. Molina’s Vanderbilt University in work “puts new, stronger con- Nashville, Tennessee, in fall exoplanets in more straints on the mechanisms 2024. They attribute their suc- that formed the initial black cess to a focus on both astro- conventional holes,” and picks up objects physics and activism; their other searches miss, they say. work includes founding the environments. equity organization Towards Molina now has an exten- a More Inclusive Astronomy, Martin is now hunting for exoplanets in even stranger sys- sive program planned for the which now has four chapters next few years to observe in across the country. tems, like those that include a white dwarf. The key challenge radio, optical, infrared, and X-ray light. They hope to bet- “I needed to do both to is no longer simply finding exoplanets, he says. “It’s trying to ter constrain and understand persevere,” they say. “I want how black holes in dwarf gal- other younger astronomers find new planets which would really increase our understand- axies interact with their hosts to know that it’s possible for to evolve over time. them too, as well. They don’t ing,” perhaps in ways we never anticipated. have to choose science or Molina’s “tireless pursuit equity work. ... If they To that end, he and a colleague, Dan Fabrycky of the of academic excellence and want, they can have it all.” their tenacity and persever- University of Chicago, built an algorithm for finding exoplan- ance made them a role model —ARWEN RIMMER ets, called STANLEY. (Martin named it after his dog, simply because he could.) Before Sports are still Martin’s STANLEY, exoplanets in first love. If someone circumbinary systems had to says their first love is be spotted with the human math, he says, laughing, eye. Now, the algorithm not “I tend to think you need to get out a bit more.” only allows for finding smaller exoplanets, but also for much more accurate characterizations of such systems. Amaury H.M.J. Triaud, an exoplanet astronomer at the University of Birmingham in the U.K. and Martin’s most- published co-author, says astronomers like Martin don’t come along every day. “I love working with him,” he says. “He pushes me out of my comfort zones and our discussions always lead to something new.” —CONNOR LYNCH WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 41

INDARA SUAREZ particle physicist at Boston University, ADRIAN is hunting for new fundamental par- PRICE-WHELAN SEEKING NEW PARTICLES ticles. “We know so little of what makes [up] our universe,” says Suarez. MILKY WAY The Standard Model of particle ARCHAEOLOGIST physics — the current accepted theory AS THE SUN ROSE over Manhattan on April 25, 2018, Adrian Price-Whelan that describes all known elementary sat in a room full of astronomers on the third floor of the Flatiron Institute, particles and three of the four known a research hub for computational sci- ence. Adrenaline coursed through him fundamental forces — still cannot as he and collaborator Ana Bonaca delved into the massive dataset that had explain certain phenomena. For one, been released by the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission just moments the model holds no clues to dark mat- before. The data detailed the positions of 1.7 billion stars in and around the ter, the invisible mass that makes up Milky Way. 27 percent of the universe. Like many astronomers, Price- Whelan had spent years preparing for Suarez is at the heart of the search this moment. “I had been building toward the Gaia data releases for my for new particles that could complete entire Ph.D.,” he says. the Standard Model. She has been Still, Bonaca and Price-Whelan’s developing electronics and analysis HOWARD CHEN techniques for the Large Hadron INVESTIGATOR OF ALIEN SKIES Collider’s Compact Muon Solenoid WHEN HOWARD CHEN was a INDARA SUAREZ (CMS) experiment at CERN in teen, he discovered Carl Sagan’s classic book Pale Blue Dot (Random House, Switzerland. The giant accelerator 1994), a rumination on humanity and its lonely, fragile planetary home. slams protons into each other at nearly “I loved spending time at the the speed of light, and scientists catch library and, out of chance, I found this book that changed my perspective of IN 2006, AS AN UNDERGRADUATE, the resulting event with the massive our place in the universe,” says Chen. Indara Suarez spent time crawling CMS detector in the hope of finding Now 29, Chen was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and spent his early years in around Crystal Ball, a cutting-edge par- new particles. Burnaby, British Columbia, before moving to the U.S. for high school. ticle physics experiment that’s part of “Detectors set limitations for test- He studied creative writing during his first year at Boston University, but the A2 Collaboration’s Detector System ing new theories,” says Suarez. It is not switched to physics the next year after taking an astronomy class. In the new in Mainz, Germany. Carefully moving enough to build a detector; one also program, Chen got to experience the best of both worlds: being creative and among bundles of wires and patiently needs to know its quirks and flaws. learning about science. tuning hundreds of photomultipliers, To that end, her group is developing one after another, to ensure the spec- machine-learning algorithms to pre- trometer was ready, she realized she vent false positives and identify faulty had finally found equipment that her calling. could mimic When she was the detection 12, Suarez moved of dark matter with her family candidate par- from Mexico to ticles. She is the U.S. At the also developing time, she didn’t electronics for speak any English. the next genera- She struggled tion of preci- through high The Large Hadron Collider’s Compact Muon sion timing school and Solenoid (CMS) tracker measures the paths detectors for enrolled at of charged particles as they pass through a the CMS. In Pasadena City magnetic field. CERN; MAXIMILIEN BRICE 2021, Suarez College, originally received a planning to become a math teacher. Department of Energy Early Career Driven by her interest in science, she Award, which will enable her group applied for internships and summer to pursue these projects. research programs before deciding to When she’s not searching for new apply to the University of California, particles, Suarez is also dedicated to Los Angeles, for a bachelor’s degree in helping students from underrepre- physics. She then went on to attend the sented backgrounds, ensuring that physics graduate program at Texas they can devote their time to research A&M University. and develop a sense of belonging in Suarez, now 38 and an experimental physics. — JURE JAPELJ 42 ASTRONOMY • NOVEMBER 2022

PORTRAIT: THE SIMONS FOUNDATION. ICON: KUROKSTA/DREAMSTIME directly observed. Price-Whelan hoped interested in science, but I never thought that its stellar footprint would provide I’d actually get to be a scientist,” he says. success hinged on a hunch — albeit an insight into its properties and behavior. extensively researched one. Theoretical He was set on studying lighting and models developed in the years leading up “We did some very simple data selec- sound for the stage when he enrolled at to the release suggested that the strung- tions within hours of the data becoming New York University in 2006, but a out remnants of smaller galaxies devoured public and saw what looked like one of physics class caught his attention and by the Milky Way might contain discern- these features that we saw in the simula- diverted his course. After completing his ible traces of dark matter that had passed tions,” he says. “We were completely undergrad studies, he was captivated by through them. Dark matter, which is stunned.” astronomy through a role at the Sloan thought to comprise some 85 percent of Digital Sky Survey. He vividly remembers the universe’s total mass, has never been In the years since, Price-Whelan and visiting the Apache Point Observatory in his collaborators have published a series New Mexico, where the survey is based, of landmark papers describing the evi- that year. dence for these enigmatic disruptions in the outskirts of the Milky Way. His work “I met these eminent names in the field has implications for both the prevailing — people like Connie Rockosi and Jim models of dark matter and the insights Gunn — but I had no idea who they that can be gathered from observations were,” he says. “I loved that the survey was of our galaxy. this very intricate, official project with big, beautiful data releases, but they still fixed At 33, Price-Whelan is now a promi- things with duct tape and grease.” nent computational astrophysicist and holds a position as an associate research Today, Price-Whelan is most fascinated scientist at the Flatiron Institute. Much by the spiral-like patterns that reverberate of his work connects theoretical science through the Milky Way when it is struck to empirical data. With this approach, he by a satellite galaxy. Though this occur- is expanding the conclusions that we can rence has been modeled, it has not been come to by looking through a telescope. observed directly. He hopes to see evi- dence in yet another upcoming data But he’ll be the first to tell you that his release from the Gaia mission. —GABE ALLEN path there was winding. “I was always “I thrived in an environ- and composition of such exo- These reactions play an impor- He anticipates that this, in ment where I could ask big, planetary atmospheres. His tant role in determining which turn, will help him answer big bold questions to try and fig- work focuses on incorporating gases, and how much of each, questions, such as whether ure out answers using the chemical reactions that occur are present in the atmosphere water could be present on the tools and methods of science,” between a host star’s light and of an exoplanet. “Each gas can surface of Earth-like planets, he says. a planet’s atmosphere into cli- give us some clue of the cli- and if there are potential bio- mate models, something that mate evolution and the current signatures that indicate the Chen went on to complete hasn’t traditionally been done. state of the planet,” says Chen. presence of life. his Ph.D. at Northwestern University, specializing in ANNABETH LINE “I’m hoping my work will planetary science. He is cur- allow us to be able to consis- rently a postdoctoral program tently predict the atmospheric fellow at NASA Goddard composition of terrestrial exo- Space Flight Center, where he planets and to compare this to focuses his research on the what we might be able to even- atmospheres of exoplanets. tually observe using tele- scopes,” says Chen. “I really enjoy pushing our limits to understand the atmo- Daniel Horton, a climate spheres of smaller, rocky exo- scientist and Earth system planets that are within the modeler at Northwestern habitable zone,” he says. These University who was Chen’s worlds, where liquid water thesis advisor, says, “Howard’s could exist on the surface, are drive, independence, and the obvious places to hunt for creativity suggest he will be signs of life-friendly conditions a pioneer in the planetary hab- or even life itself. itability research community for years to come.” Chen uses computer simu- lations to predict the evolution — THEO NICITOPOULOS WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 43

LINA NECIB DAVID SELLA CHERRY NG CHERRY NG DARK MATTER DETECTIVE TUNING IN TO PULSARS LINA NECIB IS ON THE HUNT for dark matter. And FOR MORE THAN two she’s utilizing all the tools in the physicist’s toolkit, plus a years, Cherry Ng had been few others — even when they require learning an entirely writing an algorithm that new skill set. would allow her team to process the 13 terabytes of An assistant professor at MIT, Necib, 33, describes herself data recorded every second as an astroparticle physicist. “I have a Ph.D. in particle phys- by the Canadian Hydrogen ics, but during my postdoc, I slowly switched to astrophysics,” Intensity Mapping she explains. “I thought these two communities really Experiment (CHIME) tele- needed to talk to each other a little bit more. We’re all trying scope in British Columbia, to answer the same question: What is dark matter?” Canada. That’s about the data rate of the entire That is the defining mystery for this generation of funda- North American cellphone mental physicists, says Jesse Thaler, a theoretical particle network. After a late Friday physicist at MIT and Necib’s Ph.D. supervisor. To answer it, night debugging the code Necib uses a synthesis of tools and approaches in her work. in the winter of 2018, Ng woke up Saturday morning For example, the Gaia mission, a space observatory and continued to work, still in bed, when she noticed the algo- launched in rithm had performed exactly as expected on a validation test. She 2013 by the couldn’t believe it, she says. “I immediately sent the screenshot to European my supervisor, to which he replied, ‘Oh, wow, that’s beautiful!’” Space Agency Before CHIME, discoveries of fast radio bursts (FRBs) — to chart a 3D powerful but mysterious signals from faraway galaxies — were map of Milky rare. Ng was previously part of a team at the Max Planck Way stars, Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, that found is providing just four bursts in 2013. Now, using Ng’s algorithm, CHIME has unprecedented spotted over 1,000 FRBs. It’s a feat Ng calls a “pleasant surprise,” datasets for since no one knew if it would work. CHIME looks for FRBs at analyzing lower frequencies than ever before — a gamble that paid off. our galaxy’s Now a project scientist at the University of Toronto, Ng says objects. Necib developing that algorithm is still the work that she’s most proud describes of. Yet, her role with the project is far from over. Through ongo- Gaia’s tele- ing data analysis, Ng hopes to determine exactly what FRBs are. scope as the But at just 35 years old, she’s already made her mark on the field. world’s “most During her Ph.D., Ng developed a different algorithm that dis- expensive covered 60 rapidly spinning neutron stars, known as pulsars, speedgun, which are so dense that they contain roughly the mass of our because it Sun in an object the size of New York City, she says. That makes measures the pulsars the closest things to a black hole that astronomers can study; plus, they are easier to spot. Ng’s newfound pulsars made velocity of 1.8 billion stars in the galaxy.” To process this up 2.5 percent of the total known population at the time. tremendous amount of data, she employs a rather new tool: Although Ng is early in her career, others in her field have machine learning. taken notice. “Her publications in the pulsar and fast radio burst literature are always so clearly written and something that I rec- Necib also makes use of recent advances in simulations. ommend to my students to read as an example of a great paper,” “We can build simulations [that start] a few billion years ago, says Duncan Lorimer, a West Virginia University astronomer and let them run all the way to today,” she explains. This who, with his colleagues, discovered the first FRB in 2007. allows researchers to simulate galaxies very like the Milky Ng’s work now extends beyond pulsars and FRBs. In partner- Way, tracking both their stars and dark matter. ship with the Breakthrough Listen Project at the Berkeley SETI Research Center, she will hunt for radio evidence of extraterres- Necib’s multidisciplinary approach is in keeping with her trial civilizations. With such a vast universe to search, Ng thinks “question-driven” personality, says Thaler. For Necib, “the there’s a long way to go before such a signal is found. “But if we tools follow the questions,” he says. “This type of synthesis is don’t start, we won’t find it,” she says. —ALLISON WHITTEN essential in this area.” And Necib is committed to training the next generation of out-of-the-box thinkers in these tools — for example, by running hackathons to teach other researchers how to make the best use of the Gaia data. As Thaler puts, it, “Wherever the mystery of dark matter goes, she’ll be there.” —AVERY HURT 44 ASTRONOMY • NOVEMBER 2022

MARK MORETTO MEREDITH RAWLS COMETARY SAILOR DARK-SKY ADVOCATE THERE’S A SAYING from leg- BEGINNING IN 2024, astronomers endary comet hunter David Levy at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile that Mark Moretto knows by will experience a deluge of data: The heart: “Comets are like cats: They facility’s 8.4-meter telescope will scan the have tails and do precisely what entire night sky every three days, allowing they want.” astronomers to track changes in the position Moretto, 27, has been working to The European probe Rosetta and brightness of bil- understand comets and their unpre- spent two years orbiting lions of stars, planets, dictable behavior ever since he was in Comet 67P/Churyumov- and asteroids. high school, when he began doing Gerasimenko. ESA/ROSETTA/ “It’s going to be a NAVCAM – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0 remarkable discovery engine for almost every area of astrophysics,” says research with University of Maryland Meredith Rawls, age 36, a research scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle. “There will be tera- comet scientists Michael A’Hearn and Lori Feaga. At that time, bytes [of data] every night, which is terrifying, but also cool — and we need to turn that into useful data products the pair were team members on NASA’s Deep Impact mission, for the scientific community.” PORTRAIT: JILLIAN MORETTO. ICON: KUROKSTA/DREAMSTIMEwhich flew by Comet 9P/Tempel 1 in 2005. Moretto analyzed That’s where Rawls comes in — she’s writing software PAM LINWOODto process those reams of raw data and highlight the use- Tempel 1’s outgassing jets — work that received the National ful bits. The algorithms she writes compare the pictures of the night sky, pixel by pixel, to identify the objects that Young Astronomer Award from the Astronomical League. have changed and moved. Today, Moretto is a graduate student at the University of The task is made far more difficult by the ever- increasing number of satellites in low Earth orbit launched Colorado in Boulder, where he continues to study active comets by firms like SpaceX. “They show up as bright streaks on astronomical images, and they are a lot brighter than — now helping spacecraft to safely orbit them. anybody really expected,” says Rawls. Companies and governments are planning to launch constellations with The challenge is that an active comet is constantly acting out, thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thou- sands of satellites. “We’re kind of at a sea-change moment spewing tons of gas and dust into its temporary atmosphere, or for our utilization of low-Earth-orbit space,” says Rawls. coma. Inside it, a probe is buffeted by complex aerodynamic As a member of the American Astronomical Society’s Committee on Light Pollution, Radio Interference, and forces that are difficult to model. “There’s a lot of inherent ambi- Space Debris, Rawls has worked with some operators to make their satellites more astronomy friendly. For instance, guity associated with the behavior of gas and dust in the coma,” SpaceX has covered their craft with dark paint to reduce their reflectivity. But Rawls is still concerned that the says Moretto, overall practice is unsustainable. “We don’t know exactly what the ramifications are going to be,” she says, noting which in turn that satellites can contribute to atmospheric pollution as well as light pollution that interferes with animal behavior. creates “huge Beyond that, the massive surge in low-Earth-orbit sat- uncertainties.” ellites will change the way we all experience the night sky. “Everyone at some point in their life has looked up at the What he learns sky,” she says. “The sense of awe that drew me to astron- omy in the first place is a really good reminder about how will aid not only in everything is connected.” —KATE GOLEMBIEWSKI research missions WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 45 but also planetary- defense efforts, scouting comets on a collision course with Earth — in which case “we could be oper- ating very close to it for a long period of time.” Better understanding how spacecraft behave in long- term comet orbits would also be vital for future mission concepts like mining. Currently, no extended-duration comet missions are greenlit — ESA’s Comet Interceptor is being built for a 2029 launch, but it’s a flyby mission. However, there are other possibilities for Moretto to dig into some hands-on work. “The current plan- etary decadal survey highlights a comet sample-return mission as one of their desired missions for the coming decade,” Moretto notes. “That would be great to work on.” —JOEL DAVIS

DARION DIXON EXPLORER OF MARS DARIAN DIXON IS ONE all those scientists PORTRAIT: SUZY DIXON. ICON: KUROKSTA/DREAMSTIMEopportunities are closer of the solar system’s few inter- overjoyed with the than they realize. planetary photographers, hav- results of their labor father, left Malin to pursue a ing operated a NASA rover and ready for the doctorate at his hometown “Outreach is incredibly as it imaged the landscape of exploration ahead, University of Wisconsin- important to me,” Dixon Mars. But despite dreaming I decided I couldn’t Milwaukee. Leaving San Diego says. “I don’t shy away of a career in space science as shy away from that meant saying goodbye to his from the elephant in the a teenager, Dixon first went dream any longer.” beautiful garden of bananas, room: The sciences con- to school for political science, passionfruit, and mangos, but tinue to have a diversity convinced his math skills In 2018, he real- he sees new opportunities problem.” The higher and weren’t up to snuff. He credits ized that dream ahead — and they are related higher he rises, he says, the 2011 launch of NASA’s when he joined to martian dirt. He hopes his the fewer and fewer faces Curiosity rover for changing Malin Space Science focus on the clay minerals at he sees that look like his. his mind on his major. Systems, the California com- Jezero Crater, Perseverance’s “Given everything I’ve been pany tasked with building landing site, will help him able to accomplish despite “I remember watching NASA’s Mars cameras, as a determine how they formed being underrepresented and every second of the launch data-management lead. There, and what they reveal about facing significant economic coverage,” Dixon says. “Seeing he operated three cameras on Mars’ aqueous history. hardship, I feel a responsibility Curiosity, as well as helped to encourage and empower NASA’s Perseverance rover used its develop the Perseverance rov- Aside from his studies, others like me. Science belongs Mastcam-Z instrument to snap this er’s Mastcam-Z camera. Dixon is routinely involved to everyone.” —MARK HILL image of a balancing boulder (left) in outreach work, where he June 12, 2022. NASA/JPL-CALTECH/ASU When pictures from stresses to students that STEM When Dixon isn’t studying Perseverance began rolling in Mars, he’s likely gardening, after its landing in February rooting for the Milwaukee 2021, Dixon said the feeling Bucks, or playing open- was “nothing short of incred- world RPGs (role-playing ible. So many engineers, scien- games). He jokes that he’s tists, managers, visionaries, “probably devoted 10 worked tirelessly for years. It percent of my waking life to was a huge ‘This is it. We’ve the Elder Scrolls series.” done it’ moment.” In January 2022, Dixon, a 30-year-old husband and CRISTINA THOMAS way harder than I ever anticipated,” she says, even as she dis- covered her love for planetary science. But the arrival of Spirit INTERROGATING ASTEROIDS and Opportunity on Mars, as well as a general sense of a revival in solar system exploration, helped Thomas weather CRISTINA THOMAS FONDLY remembers looking at the the hard work. Moon through her family’s small telescope. She also remembers “a big picture book” she had at age 7 or 8, “that described the She found ways to ensure success and excellence, working planets, that had these giant new Voyager pictures in it.” Then overtime and seeking support. She asked questions ceaselessly. there was an open house at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that “Thankfully, everyone that I did talk to and approach, 90 percent she attended as a teen, where she talked to the scientists. That of them were fantastic. And so it’s really a credit to all of them experience, she says, “helped solidify … this is a thing that peo- that I was able to keep pushing forward and to make progress.” ple do as a job. I thought: ‘I wanted to be an astronomer.’” Now, the 39-year-old planetary astronomer is an assistant She pursued that dream at Caltech. There, professor in the Department of Astronomy and Planetary Thomas — who is of Indigenous Mexican heritage — was a woman of color in a mostly white male Science at Northern Arizona University (NAU) in student body. And most of her peers had a more Flagstaff, Arizona. Inspired by learning how spectros- advanced STEM background. The classes “were copy could link meteorites to asteroids and reveal their compositions, her current work still focuses on asteroids. After all, she says, researchers have numerous pieces of iron meteorites that came 46 ASTRONOMY • NOVEMBER 2022

KATIE BOUMAN image. “It’s like playing a song on a piano that has some broken keys,” she explains. BLACK HOLE PHOTOGRAPHER “If enough keys are functioning, you can get the gist of the song. The trick then is to fill in the gaps in order to recover the KATIE BOUMAN WAS pursuing her whole song — or, in this case, recover the longtime interest in computational imag- whole picture.” ing as an MIT graduate student when, But an infinite number of images in 2013, her career took an unexpected could be constructed from the piecemeal turn. In the midst of her studies, she heard data available to work with. Bouman led astrophysicist Shep Doeleman talk about the effort to pick out the correct image the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) — an among the myriad possibilities. The ambitious project aimed at obtaining the group accomplished this by separating the first-ever image of a researchers into indepen- black hole. Bouman dent teams that tried out was immediately different algorithms, hooked. While black which converged on the holes were entirely same picture: a bright new to her, the com- ring surrounding the PORTRAIT: LANCE R. HAYASHIDA/CALTECH. ICON: SERGEY KOLESOV/DREAMSTIME putational problems shadow of M87’s black 2022, the EHT Collaboration achieved another breakthrough, presenting the first associated with hole. “It took a phenom- image of Sagittarius A*, the giant black hole in the middle of the Milky Way. imaging one were enal amount of creative It was another accomplishment familiar. “I begged work,” Doeleman says. Bouman would never have imagined being part of a decade ago. “When I my Ph.D. advisor The first-ever image of a black hole “Katie’s ingenuity started on my Ph.D. research, I had no [William Freeman] to shows the shadow of M87* silhouetted greatly accelerated EHT idea I would work on astronomy prob- let me work on it,” she against the disk of bright material efforts to make the first lems, let alone anything involving black says. Freeman obliged. around it. EVENT HORIZON TELESCOPE COLLABORATION image of a black hole.” holes,” she says. But she was lucky to come across an idea, and an accompanying At the time, the EHT The image was unveiled project, that grabbed her. “There are tons of opportunities that lie at the intersection Collaboration was focused on capturing a by the EHT Collaboration in April 2019. of different scientific fields,” she adds. “When people on both sides start learning shot of the black hole at the center of M87, Bouman, now 33, received her Ph.D. in each other’s languages, that can open up a huge avenue for new ideas.” —STEVE NADIS a galaxy 55 million light-years away. But 2017 and joined Caltech in 2019 as an even with a network of telescopes scattered assistant professor of computing and around the globe, EHT couldn’t simply mathematical sciences. She is also co- photograph a black hole. Bouman and oth- leader of EHT’s Imaging Working Group, ers had to develop algorithms to take the which aims to capture images of other incomplete data collected by the telescopes black holes and eventually produce not and weave it together into a composite only snapshots, but movies. On May 12, PORTRAIT: NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY. ASTEROID: NINA SITKEVICH/DREAMSTIME from the cores of large, differentiated bodies that smashed together, creating debris. But “what happened to the rest of the objects? The crusts? The mantles? Where did they go?” she asks. Thomas is also excited to lead the Observations Working Group on the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Investigation Team. DART will hit the moonlet of a near-Earth asteroid this fall in an attempt to understand how to redirect objects that threaten our planet. “I think that it’s going to be a really big deal,” she says. Paying forward the support and sense of community she received as a student, Thomas is also part of an Indigenous Research and Teaching Circle at NAU, where she teaches courses in Indigenous astronomy. She has one more important ongoing project: “I’ve been looking for [that childhood book on the solar system] for years, but never found it again. I have no idea what book it was, but it was very cool and very influential,” she says. “The fact that we could do this type of exploration was kind of mind-blowing.” — CHRISTOPHER COKINOS WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 47

CHANDA PRESCOD-WEINSTEIN CALCULATING THE COSMOS WHEN ASKED WHAT first drew her Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, to physics, you might expect theoretical writing her thesis on quantum gravity. cosmologist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein One of the largest conundrums facing to say that it was looking up at stars or modern physicists is how general relativ- learning about planets. But it was some- ity, which explains how gravity warps thing much closer to Earth. “I love space-time, fits with the intrinsic proper- math,” she says. “So, when ties of particles as described by quan- we learned about planes and tum mechanics. Physicists hope everything involved in that by developing a so-called keeping them in the air, Theory of Everything, they I was hooked.” will be able to solve cosmic It was after watching enigmas like dark matter the documentary A Brief and dark energy. the science working group for NASA’s STROBE-X probe, which will begin History of Time when she To tackle these myster- studying the universe in X-rays in the 2030s. was 10, that Prescod- ies, Prescod-Weinstein, 40, In addition to being an assistant pro- Weinstein decided she focuses on cosmology, dark fessor of physics, Prescod-Weinstein is also a core faculty member in the wom- wanted to be a theoretical The otherwise invisible dark matter, and neutron stars. en’s and gender studies department at the physicist. She ultimately matter in this image has She also searches for axions earned her Ph.D. at the been mapped out in blue. — a dark matter candidate Perimeter Institute for particle — as a member of NASA, ESA, ESO, CXC, AND D. COE (STSCI)/ J. MERTEN (HEIDELBERG/BOLOGNA) LAURA KREIDBERG WHAT’S IN A WORLD? Astronomer inferred that the planet actually has no Laura Kreidberg doesn’t know, but she’s atmosphere at all,” a first-of-its-kind find. ATMOSPHERIC ADVENTURER dying to find out. For now, though, Kreidberg, along Kreidberg, 33, focuses on exploring the with the broader astronomical commu- clouds of alien worlds to help astronomers nity, is eagerly awaiting future data analyze and catalog their astounding releases from the gold-plated mirrors of diversity, history, and, just maybe, inhab- the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). itants. She serves as founding director of the Atmospheric Physics of Exoplanets Unlike Hubble, which is only sensitive (APEx) Department, established in to select few molecules like atmospheric 2020 at the Max Planck Institute for water and sodium, “James Webb will have Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany. really broad wavelength coverage that will allow us to access the whole spectrum of Over the years, Kreidberg has molecules that we think are [in the atmo- observed and characterized numerous spheres of exoplanets],” says Kreidberg. unique exoplanetary atmospheres. Highlights include TRAPPIST-1 c, a The exoplanet LHS 3844 b, seen here in an artist’s Venus-like world that orbits its red dwarf concept, is a rocky world without an atmosphere, in star every 2.4 days; WASP-12 b, a hot a tight orbit around its star. NASA/JPL-CALTECH/R. HURT/IPAC Jupiter with a temperature of 4,000 PORTRAIT: FABIAN WOLF. ICON: KUROKSTA/DREAMSTIME degrees Fahrenheit (2,200 degrees Celsius) that’s being torn apart by tidal forces; and GJ 1214 b, the first super- Earth around which an atmosphere has been detected. The list goes on. “Similar to children,” Kreidberg jokes, “you cannot pick a favorite exoplanet. That’s kind of bad form. But at the moment, my favorite planet is LHS 3844 b. This is a hot rocky planet that I studied with the Spitzer Space Telescope, and we 48 ASTRONOMY • NOVEMBER 2022

University of New Hampshire in ALEXANDER JAMES Durham. In 2021, she published The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into SOLAR STORM CHASER Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred (Bold Type Books). Born of aCHANDA PRESCOD-WEINSTEINALEXANDER JAMESit’s going to cause long-held desire to write her own ver- PORTRAIT: ALEXANDER JAMES. ICON: KUROKSTA/DREAMSTIMEdecided to study the Sunus any problems,” sion of A Brief History of Time and a when he was a graduate says James. series of essays she posted on her blog student at the University “Alex digs hard to during her career, The Disordered of Southhampton in the In a 2018 find the right evidence, Cosmos explores her field of research, U.K. His reasoning was study, James and and he is really honest her experiences in science as a Black simple: “I wanted to do his colleagues with himself and every- woman from East L.A., and how social something that would tackled archival one about what can forces like racism and sexism affect have a direct impact and data of a June and can’t be answered,” how science functions and who gets application to helping 2012 CME that says David Williams, to participate in it. “As I sat down to society,” he says. caused a moder- the instrument opera- write, I saw the dream deferred in ate geomagnetic tions scientist for the front of me and the story that needed James, 29, went on to storm. Their European Space Agency’s to be told: why particle physics is complete his Ph.D. at analysis con- Solar Orbiter mission. exciting, why we should pursue it, and University College firmed that a Those qualities, he says, that the problems are not just techni- London, and he is cur- massive twist of mag- are “vital if we’re going cal but also human,” she says. “The rently a solar physicist netic fields known as to give ourselves a book opens with what is awe- at the European Space a flux rope formed in the fighting chance” of inspiring, and I think this helps Astronomy Centre in Sun’s corona a few hours improving our ability to the call for justice at the end more Madrid, Spain. He before the eruption. predict space weather. compelling.” —CAITLYN BUONGIORNO focuses on figuring out When flux ropes reach what causes the massive a critical height, they can Beyond the practical “That will help reveal whether rocky eruptions of charged par- become unstable, which benefits of studying the planets have atmospheres, and maybe ticles known as coronal can lead to CMEs. Sun, James also appreci- provide broad-brush breakdowns of what mass ejections (CMEs) ates how unique it is as they are made out of.” But Kreidberg to lift off the Sun. “A lot of the flux an astronomical target. “I cautions that detailed analyses of the bio- ropes that have been think it’s fascinating that signatures for life — such as oxygen and When strong CMEs studied formed at lower we can study a star so carbon dioxide — will likely remain out strike Earth’s magnetic heights, but the 2012 flux close with high-resolution of reach for JWST, as determining precise field, they can induce rope formed at a remark- instruments to learn so compositions will require even more currents in power lines ably higher altitude in much about it,” he says. advanced telescopes in the future. capable of destroying the corona,” James says. transformers — which — THEO NICITOPOULOS Although Kreidberg has already happened in Quebec His current work secured JWST observing time for a few on March 13, 1989. But includes modeling how of her own targets, such as TRAPPIST-1 c, currently, there are no this critical height varies you can be sure she will also be sifting reliable models that can across active regions of through any other exoplanetary data she predict when a CME will the corona over time. can get her hands on. That’s because, happen. “We see one James hopes this will Kreidberg says, she often begins with the headed towards us and help to quantify the question: “‘What can I observe?’ And we only have the time chances of CMEs hap- then my question is: ‘Why is that inter- before it arrives” — as pening and eventually esting?’ So, a lot of the creative part of little as hours — “to produce a “five-day the work is crafting the story of why the begin to decipher whether forecast of CMEs” to planets we can observe are interesting give us time to prepare. and what we can learn from them.” After all, she says, “Beggars can’t be choosers, Bundles of so I sort of take what I can get.” magnetic loops form flux ropes “I think we can learn really funda- that arc over the mental things about planet formation Sun’s surface in and atmospheric chemistry and physics this image from all types of planets,” she says, even captured by if they don’t make headlines. —JAKE PARKS NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. NASA/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER/SDO WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 49

AMIR SIRAJ PORTRAIT: JON CHASE/HARVARD UNIVERSITY. ‘OUMUAMUA: ESO/M. KORNMESSER INTERSTELLAR MUSICIAN MORE THAN THREE YEARS AGO, meteor was the first interstellar object secure a piece of the interstellar meteorite Amir Siraj was looking through a data- ever discovered.” he helped identify. “It exploded off the base from NASA’s Center for Near-Earth coast of Papua New Guinea. Supposedly, Object Studies (CNEOS) when he took For Siraj, who graduated this spring there should be fragments at the bottom notice of an object designated CNEOS with both a bachelor’s and a master’s of the ocean floor,” Siraj says. 2014-01-08, which landed near Papua degree in astrophysics from Harvard, the New Guinea in 2014. Siraj and his advi- memo was a nicely timed graduation gift. Soon after the Space Force memo was sor, astrophysicist Avi Loeb of Harvard However, he’s taking a break from astro- released, Siraj and Loeb connected with University, calculated the space rock’s physics during the 2022/23 school year to researchers at the National Oceanic and trajectory and unexpectedly found it complete his master’s in piano perfor- Atmospheric Administration to begin came from outside our solar system. mance at the New England Conservatory planning meetings on how to retrieve a of Music. piece of the interstellar space rock. “The “This was surprising,” says Siraj, 22, hope is we might be able to retrieve the of Brookline, Massachusetts, who has Siraj has been studying piano since he first piece of interstellar material that is already published more than 30 academic was 4 years old. In 2017, he was selected bigger than dust,” Siraj says. papers. “People have been searching for during his senior year of high school these things since the 1950s. Every rock as one of 161 students to earn a U.S. Loeb says that Siraj’s optimism for we know that has hit the Earth has come Presidential Scholar in the Arts Award. A his research can be infectious, adding from our solar system.” dual-degree program allowed him to study that older scientists can benefit from it. both theoretical physics at Harvard and “Sometimes young people can find things The two were ready to publish their piano performance at the conservatory. that more senior, accomplished experts do results, but they had a problem. The find not. That is what makes science exciting.” remained unconfirmed because it was still Siraj plans to return to astrophysics considered classified information. “This and pursue his doctorate, as well as —EMILIE LUCCHESI object was so clearly interstellar,” Siraj says. “But journals didn’t like the uncertainties.” For three long years, their research remained unpublished as Siraj and Loeb tried to make contact with government officials. Finally, in April 2022, the U.S. Space Force tweeted a copy of the memo that Lt. Gen. John Shaw sent to Siraj and Loeb. The memo confirmed the data — the meteorite was indeed interstellar and the first of its kind. “This changes history,” says Loeb. “The EILEEN MOLONY/NORTHWESTERN WEN-FAI FONG caused them. To help solve the mystery, Fong studied the galaxies and SCIENCE WITH A BANG environments where GRBs had been seen, searching for clues to what could OBSERVATIONAL ASTRONOMER make such bright, short-lived flashes. Wen-Fai Fong’s research always starts with fireworks. In 2017, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) “I study explosions in the night sky,” detected ripples in space-time passing Fong says. “In astronomy, we call them through Earth just seconds before tele- transients.” Fong focuses on two kinds of scopes saw a GRB. Fong led one of the brilliant transient events that last for just teams that analyzed the event and deter- fractions of a second: gamma-ray bursts mined that GRBs can be caused by a (GRBs) and fast radio bursts. merger of two dense stellar remnants known as neutron stars. Based on this When Fong entered the field, GRBs discovery, astronomers now suspect a were an enigma — no one knew what neutron star merging with a black hole 50 ASTRONOMY • NOVEMBER 2022